Flipside
by Negligible1
Summary: Naruto Namikaze, the venerated Hero, son of the Fourth Hokage, container of the Nine Tailed Fox. Sasuke Uchiha, last of the traitorous Uchiha clan, pariah of Konoha. Sakura Haruno, an orphan whose parents were killed when Konoha refused to pay their ransom. This is Team 7, Kakashi Hatake's team. This is life on the flipside.
1. The Start of Something Special

**Disclaimer: **All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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**Chapter 1: The Start of Something Special.**

Kakashi Hatake was a distinguished Jonin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Konohagakure. He was something of a hero to some, a villain to others, and his name was notorious across the world. A student of the Fourth Hokage, he had graduated from the Academy at the age of five, became a Chunin not a year later, and became a Jonin at the mere age of thirteen. A survivor of the Third Shinobi World War, he had lived through countless threats to his life and ended countless threats to his village, he took part in innumerable attacks on enemy forces, killed more than his fair share, and lost many of those closest to him. He was made of stern stuff, a man who would give his all to complete any task given to him, someone who would kill and bribe and cheat and steal and lie to fulfil his duties to his village and would obey almost any order, no matter how insane or suicidal it seemed to be, and always come out fighting.

And even he was having his doubts about these three.

Here they were, sat on the roof of the Academy on a bright, beautiful afternoon, three newly graduated Genin and their Jonin sensei. It was a joyous day for most Jonin, they either got to pick on a group of 'Genin' who weren't ready for that title, and then send them off back to the Academy with their heads bowed and their arrogance cowed, of they got themselves a team to train and care for, and eventually come to love and cherish as if they were their own children.

Kakashi, on the other hand…

Resisting the very tempting urge to sigh Kakashi gave his entire team a bored once over glance, then, resting his right hand on the side of his head, half covering his one uncovered eye with his fingers, he focused his gaze onto the boy on the far left, his hand hiding his intense scrutiny somewhat.

Sasuke Uchiha was a pale skinned boy who was slightly taller than average, with black hair that spiked up at the back and had longs bangs at the front that framed his face, so long they hung down to his chin. He had onyx coloured eyes and a scowl on his face, and yes Kakashi was listing 'scowl on his face' alongside permanent features. In fairness it hadn't shifted in the slightest since he had arrived, and while he might've arrived three hours late that scowl didn't look it was going to go anywhere ever.

Sasuke wore a pair of three quarter length, dark grey trousers and a long sleeved, high collared, black shirt with the Uchiha clan crest emblazoned across its back. He wore the typical equipment pouches on his thigh and his waist, and the typical blue shinobi sandals specially designed for ease of movement, durability, and, of course, drainage. It was rather difficult to fight when your shoes were full of blood after all.

Sasuke's forehead protector was, surprise surprise, on his forehead. Most kids nowadays seemed to think it was cool to wear it somewhere else, like the arm, or as a belt, he had even seen someone wear it as some sort of leg belt or something. Admittedly Kakashi himself was wearing his as an eye patch, but it was on his forehead as well.

Sasuke was… well he was going to be tricky, and that was putting it lightly.

Four years ago the famed Uchiha clan had been brutally massacred by their favourite son, Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke's older brother. Every single one of them had been slaughtered, the men, the women, even the children, not a single Uchiha survived that night except Sasuke, and of course Itachi.

For this foul, disgusting act of near genocide, on his own kin, Itachi Uchiha, was viewed by the people of Konoha and the Land of Fire as a whole as… a hero.

The Uchiha's attempted coup d'état was revealed to the wider populace after the slaughter took place. Itachi had potentially saved the entire village, the land, hell all the lands and all the hidden villages, from a fourth world war. He had murdered traitors and conspirators, and yet with him alive and in good health the future of the Sharingan as a Konoha bloodline remained secure.

And Sasuke was allowed to live where the rest of the Uchiha died because Itachi asked that he be spared, , because Itachi valued his life above the life of the whole Uchiha clan, because while Itachi was willing to murder all his kinsmen for the sake of his village he wasn't willing to murder his little brother.

Sasuke had not witnessed the massacre. He was knocked unconscious by his brother beforehand and put under ANBU guard at the hospital. Kakashi knew this because he had been one of the guards, and so he also knew of Sasuke's reaction when he had woken and a blood-stained Itachi, accompanied by the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had explained to him what had occurred.

At first the boy hadn't believed it, then he started crying, then he attacked Itachi. Kakashi and the ANBU had moved to restrain him, but Itachi stopped them short with a small gesture and made no move to defend himself as the tearful Sasuke continued to punch and kick and bite at his brother.

Itachi had received no injuries killing the entire Uchiha clan, full of unsuspecting but potent shinobi, a true testament to his immense skill not only as an Uchiha but as a ninja. The number of injuries Itachi had taken from Sasuke trumped it, not a difficult achievement to be sure. A bloody nose, a busted lip, a black eye, several bites that went through the skin, and most likely some severe bruising on his stomach before Sasuke had fallen unconscious from a combination of exertion and stress.

Sasuke's ordeal had not ended with his family's death at the hands of his own brother however. Itachi may have been the hero that saved them from the enemy within their own gates, and Sasuke's life might be secure because of that, but Sasuke still faced discrimination and outright hatred from the village that his clan sought to dominate.

He was not entirely blameless for this, though perhaps blame was not the correct word. There were things that Sasuke could've done that may have prevented him from becoming the outcast that he was, whether or not he should've done those things was a question that was far too complex for Kakashi to even bother contemplating.

Sasuke might not be so hated if he had not continued to bear the crest of his murdered clan, unlike his brother who had not worn it once since the massacre. He may have been accepted if he hadn't continued to defend their name, to take pride in his clan, to even agree with their desire to control the village, but he hadn't. Sasuke bore their emblem, Sasuke defended their name, and Sasuke was hated. He was nicknamed 'The Last Uchiha' and that was not meant as a compliment.

He should've been blacklisted from ever becoming a shinobi, but the Third Hokage saw fit to give him a chance, likely with some persuading from Itachi, and even then he was listed as a flight risk, showed genuine hatred towards Konoha as an entity, loathed just about everyone whoever they were and hid anything he felt behind an icy cold mask.

'_Not exactly the best person to become a shinobi' _Kakashi thought, once again having to resist the urge to sigh.

Despite all of that Sasuke was skilled. He had excellent mark in taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu, he performed well in the written test, and while that was averaged out by his outstandingly bad performance in assertiveness, preferring to instead complete the task alone, and cooperation, in that he didn't, and class attitude, where he was ranked as the worst ever, he was so impeccable in his other skills that he was this year's top rookie, and boy were there a whole lotta people pissed off about that, Sasuke himself didn't seem too thrilled about it, or maybe that was how late Kakashi had been, or maybe it was because they had been sitting here for five or so minutes and nothing had happened.

Rather than speed up or get moving along, Kakashi, if anything, slowed down and moved onto the next member of his simply wonderful team, and yes he was being sarcastic, incredibly sarcastic in fact.

Sat in the centre of the three, with an all too neutral expression on her face, was Sakura Haruno.

She had fair skin, though not as pale as Sasuke's, with long pink hair tied by a red ribbon into a simple ponytail that left her fringe to hang freely over her forehead protector, and green eyes. She wore a short sleeved dark red t-shirt that was long enough to reach down to her mid-thigh, half hiding her shuriken holster attached too bandages wrapped around her right leg, her hip pouch attached to the belt around her waist that vaguely separated her long t-shirt into upper and lower halves, and she wore the standard blue sandals.

'_Haruno… huh…' _Kakashi really, really had to resist sighing now, in fact it was an almost physical effort to keep himself from doing so. He had been the team leader of that mission, the one that left Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno in enemy hands. It was no fault of his, though that was no consolation even to Kakashi, that they had been taken captive. They had gotten careless, forgotten they were in enemy territory, and been captured.

But that wasn't the worst of it. No the worst of it was when Konoha refused to pay the ransom demanded, and thus the pair of them were killed, their corpses found hanging in a tree several days later. Kakashi knew how events had progressed in enemy hands, he was certain of it. Alone neither Mebuki nor Kizashi would've broken under torture, they were stronger than that, but they loved each other deeply and to spare the other pain and death they spilled secrets, secrets that were valuable to Konoha. As far as the higher ups were concerned that made them traitors, not even the Hokage, who was noted for his mercy and forgiveness, could defend them for their actions.

He wondered if Sakura knew the full details behind her parent's demise, and doubted it. It was more than likely that her relatives, who had taken her in following the events, had glossed over those details. Maybe they hadn't mentioned that they had been kidnapped, or didn't say that Konoha had refused to pay, or maybe they had, Kakashi truly didn't know.

What he did know was that the instructors at the Academy had little but praise for her. She was attentive, dutiful, calm, composed and scored well in all subjects but excelled at those requiring the use of her mind. She was above average in taijutsu, in the top five in fact, had done well in ninjutsu, superb in genjutsu, performed admirably in assertiveness, though the instructors noted that she preferred not to take or be placed in charge, had done okay in cooperation, but often disobeyed orders yet completed the objective more efficiently because of her disobedience. Overall, they concluded, Sakura had a keen tactical mind but her hesitation to take control and give orders hampered and would continue to hampers its use.

Sakura worried Kakashi a little, but on the whole he judged her to be the easiest on the team to manage.

'_Especially since the last one is…'_

"Are we just gonna fucking sit here?" Naruto asked, resting his chin on his knuckles and half glaring at Kakashi.

'_Naruto… Namikaze' _this time Kakashi couldn't hold back and did sigh. All his years of keeping a straight face, while being tortured, while fighting, even while a comrade died in his arms, all of that was nothing before _this_.

The son of the Fourth Hokage, and Kakashi's sensei, Minato Namikaze and his wife Kushina Uzumaki, Naruto Namikaze was widely regarding around the entire village as the hero who contained the dreaded Nine Tailed Fox that had attacked and nearly destroyed this village twelve years ago. At the cost of his own life the Fourth Hokage sealed the Nine Tailed Fox inside of Naruto, while his mother Kushina also perished that night.

Could there be a more perfect hero?

An orphan whose very life was, in a sense, forfeit to protect the village, self-sacrificing before he even understood a sense of self, guarding them all against the horror of the Nine Tails that many held still fresh in their minds. Was there any way he could be more perfect as a hero?

'_Well, I suppose he could be a blonde haired, blue eyed hero… Oh wait, he is!' _rolling both his eyes, though only one was visible, at the mock surprised tone his thoughts took on, Kakashi then looked Naruto over.

Naruto was a bit short for his age, shorter even than Sakura, with spiky blonde hair and blue eyes, as well as tanned skin. He was strikingly similar to his father in his looks. One thing his father had not possessed though was the set of three marks on either of Naruto's cheeks, scars maybe, that bore a strong resemblance to whiskers. Whether this was an effect of having the Nine Tails sealed inside of him, or whether it was something else entirely, Kakashi didn't know. But lacking any other evidence he was inclined to go with the former.

Naruto wore a bright orange hooded jacket with thick blue lines running down the arms, it was left unzipped revealing the white t-shirt marked by a red spiral he wore beneath, and a pair of orange trousers with blue lines running down the legs, matching his jacket. He had his pouches in all the usual places, his forehead protector on his forehead, and like the others he wore blue shinobi sandals.

Kakashi examined him a moment longer. According to his Academy instructor, a man named Iruka Umino, Naruto was rather crap at just about everything, his ninjutsu was frankly appalling, and his genjutsu was even worse, he didn't cooperate, and he didn't like being in charge, and he barely paid attention in class, when he showed up, when he wasn't sleeping. His one saving grace was his taijutsu, where he was just behind Sasuke who was number one.

Iruka also mentioned more than a few other things regarding Naruto such as the fact that he often came to class injured or exhausted, the boys distinct dislike of being called by his last name, a dislike of any comparison between him and his father, even in praise, his aggressive attitude that made him quick to resort of physical violence, his almost complete lack of interaction with his fellows students besides the few times when someone aggravated him, and his unwillingness to rely on anyone but himself.

One line from Iruka's report on Naruto had made Kakashi chuckle for a while, then made him rather miserable _"Naruto Namikaze passed the final exam, Naruto shouldn't have passed" _his implication was obvious to anyone willing to see it. Naruto had only passed because of his last name, because of who he was, because of who his father was.

Cracking his neck to work out the kinks that had developed there Kakashi gave his team another once over, then finally nodded to himself "Okay, enough faffing around, let's get started."

Naruto glared, Sasuke's scowl deepened, even Sakura looked slightly put out, which was fair enough.

Here he was, sounding like they were wasting his time, when he'd not arrived for three hours and then spent twenty odd minutes in silence. Kakashi was actually surprised that they'd remained quiet this long, impressed even at their patience, or their lack of will to verbalize their annoyance, it was one or the other "Now, why don't you guys introduce yourse…" he paused "…You know what, don't bother" _'I already know who all of you are' _he said to himself, but out loud said "If you pass my test you can introduce yourself, I might even care enough to learn your names, if not then… well I guess it won't matter."

"Test?" Sasuke asked, his voice as cold as his frozen in a perpetual scowl face.

"Sensei, we've already been through all the tests at the Academy" Sakura told him, a slight, barely noticeable, frown on her face.

Kakashi chuckled, ah to be so young and innocent and lacking the cynicism that years would bring, it was truly an amusing sight to behold, and one Kakashi would take glee in annihilating "Yes, yes you have, well done, you passed all of the Academy tests" he stared at them flatly, his eye showing them his utter disinterest in their existence "But those tests, those are just to weed out the ones unworthy of becoming ninja, not to find those who are worthy. So there's another test, a final final exam if you will, and one I have the pleasure of proctoring. If you pass then you become fully-fledged ninja. Fail… well, if you fail then its back to the Academy with you."

"No one said anything about another fucking test" Naruto said, his fists clenched, his teeth bared.

"It's a secret test" Kakashi explained, sort of "You've all be trained in the arts of the ninja" he continued on "Taught to fight, to use ninjutsu and genjutsu, to lay traps, to survive in the wilds, now I'll be testing all of that knowledge, and more. I'll be testing to see if any of you have the will" he paused, to let the word sink in "to truly become shinobi" leaning back Kakashi noted with approval their now utterly serious faces, and knew that the severity of the test was hitting home "Oh, and another thing" he exclaimed, as if he had forgotten "This test has a fail rate of sixty six percent" he let them process that for a moment, then smiled using only his visible eye "Just though I'd let you know" he stopped smiling suddenly, his face turning bored again "Anyway, meet me at the Third Training Ground at…" he looked up at the sun. Was he trying to divine the time based off of the suns position in the sky? No, not really "Five o'clock tomorrow morning, and bring whatever gear you think you'll need" standing he paused and looked back "One other thing, I'd advise you all not to eat breakfast tomorrow" he eye smiled, sounding, and feeling, truly cheerful "You might throw up" on that delightful statement he vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving the three wannabe ninjas behind him.

Naruto didn't hesitate in spitting at the spot where Kakashi had stood before leaving the roof, shoving his hands in his pockets and cursing under his breath. Sasuke remained sat, his hands folded before his face as he brooded over this unexpected development. Meanwhile Sakura spent a moment sat alongside Sasuke, also deep in thought, before standing and finally leaving the Uchiha along with his gradually getting darker and more violent thoughts, her own nicely cleared.

From a tree some distance away Kakashi, his legs kicked up onto a branch and leaning against the trunk, with his favourite book in his hands, looked over as they were all gone, save one, and sighed again _'Why do I get this year's Team Totally-Fucked-Up?'_

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When Naruto Namikaze woke the next morning a feeling of intense annoyance pervaded his thoughts and emotions, and he growled audibly as he remembered the source of his intense annoyance. His Cyclops of a sensei, with his stupid stuck up silver hair and his idiotic mask, had told him, and his team, yesterday that the Academy's 'final test', which Naruto had found tedious and annoying, was just a ruse to find those who 'could' become Genin, not those who 'would'. He then explained that they would be put through another test, which the Cyclops would oversee alone, to determine whether or not they really were good enough to be Genin. It went almost without saying that Naruto hated 'tests'.

Cursing under his breath he rolled out of bed, grabbing his alarm clock and throwing it at a wall seconds before it would have gone off, and headed off to get ready. He had a piss and a shower, at the same time, brushed his teeth, stared hungrily at some half-finished takeaway lying about, it might've been yesterday's, might've been last week's, and might've tasted like shit when flavoured with tooth paste, but that didn't stop him being hungry. He couldn't eat it or else risked failing this damnable test anyway, so he focused on getting dressed trying to take his mind off of food.

As he was pulling on his sandals he noticed that when he threw his alarm clock he had knocked over a picture that was always sat on his bedside table, and quickly righted it. It was a picture taken a few weeks before his birth, his beautiful red haired mother, Kushina Uzumaki, stood one hand on her bulging stomach the other locked with his father's hand.

He touched his thumb to the face of his mother, the mother he didn't and never would know, then touched his fathers as well, a father who had never held him as he cried, never told him stories of his exploits, never had the chance, a father whose name had judged his entire life. He smiled sadly at the photo "Fuck you" he told both his parents, letting the picture fall again, leaving it face down on the bedside table.

Without further ado Naruto left his apartment by the window, grabbing the rucksack he had stocked with everything he might need for the test before leaving, dropping neatly down into the street that was nearly empty at this time in the morning, and made his way to the training ground.

He arrived on time, technically he arrived two seconds after the clocks struck five but he didn't know that, and found both his teammates had arrived before him. The Third Training Ground was a glade by a river, with three wooden posts set in the centre of the glade, and the training area probably included the surrounding woodland. Sasuke was leaning against the post to his right, Sakura was leaning against the post to his left, which left him with the post in the middle.

Naruto didn't bother standing though, instead he sat down and leant back against the post, his rucksack sat beside him. Like this 'Team 7' waited… and waited… and waited… and waited… and Sakura sat down after an hour passed, and they still waited… and Naruto's stomach growled, he really regretted not eating now as they still fucking waited… and waited… and yes more waiting… and more waiting… and Sasuke stomach growled now, though nowhere near as loud as Naruto's had… and more waiting… waiting… waiting… waiting… Sakura joined the stomach growling club… and they waited… and still waited… and waited some more… and waited a while longer… and, yes, waited.

The sun had risen and the day was well and truly started, and their sensei was nowhere to be found, to his left Sasuke thumping his fist against the wooden post drew his gaze for a moment, and glancing over to his right he found Sakura checking her supplies for what must've been the fifth time. Naruto, on the other hand, decided to lean his head back and close his eyes, thinking that if their sensei wasn't around than he may as well have a nap.

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"Hey guys!" Kakashi greeted them cheerfully, suddenly popping up from behind the posts. He took two of them by surprise, both of them tensing up moment before he appeared. They had good sense's he'd give them that. Sasuke was now glaring at him and Sakura was staring blankly, he wondered if that was her way of showing annoyance, then decided that he didn't really care. The reason why he hadn't taken the final member of their team by surprise was simple, he was fast asleep "Well then, let's get on with this" he said, purposefully sounding like they were wasting his time to piss them off, it had been five and a half hours since the designated time after all "Now…" he stopped, sighed, and knelt down in front of the middle post "Come on, wakey wakey" Naruto hadn't woken up and they sort of couldn't continue without the whole team conscious "Oi, blondie, wake up" he gave the boy a light slap on the cheek, still no reaction "Come on whiskers, up" he banged the top of the blondes head with the edge of his palm, and that finally woke him up.

"Urgh… guka… huh?" Naruto slowly blinked, it was odd how despite opening his eyes he could still only see black… waking up a bit further he realised that it was actually just his sensei's mask "Where the fuck... have you been?" he grumbled at the Jonin, who backed off to let him stand, yawning halfway through his sentence.

"Ah well, you see" Kakashi paused, taking a moment to think "I was walking down the street heading to meet my wonderful new team… until I remembered I got you guys" Naruto twitched, Sasuke glared, Sakura barely reacted "But I continued on anyway, but then out of nowhere an enemy shinobi suddenly jumped out in front of me. Now I quickly dealt with him of course, however a passer-by was injured in our brief battle, so, feeling responsible, I took him to the hospital. But you see that man was a volunteer cook at a soup kitchen, and if he didn't arrive many people would go hungry, but he was injured so obviously he could go. So, being the gracious young man I am, and feeling party responsible, I volunteered to go in his stead. And that's where I've been" he finished with an eye-smile.

Sasuke glared at him disbelievingly, Sakura contained her disbelief to a raised eyebrow, but Naruto just nodded "Fair enough" he said, yawning "So, can we get started on this test, or do you need to dash off and buy some old lady her groceries because you accidently knocked her down some steps while fighting an enemy ninja plotting to assassinate the Hokage" he said it all in one breath "…or something?" so it seemed Naruto didn't believe him any more than the others, which Kakashi found rather sad to be honest, but at the same time he mentally jotted down the excuse Naruto had just given to him. He could make use of it later.

Instead of answering Kakashi placed an alarm clock down on top of the post Naruto was stood by, the blonde leaning back to see what he was doing rather than doing the simpler thing and turning around "Okay, its set for noon" he said after checking, he wouldn't want to have set it wrong after all, that would be embarrassing "Now allow me to explain the test" out of his pouch he pulled a pair of bells "This is your objective."

"Bells?" Naruto raised an eyebrow as he looked at the two silver bells on a strand of red string that Kakashi held betwixt his fingers.

"Yep, bells."

Frowning at them Naruto shook his head, not understanding in the slightest "Why?"

"Why bells?" Kakashi considered that question for a minute "You know something, I'm not really sure myself. But I guess that the bells represent an objective, and simulate a genuine mission. For instance instead of bells it could be a scroll you're tasked with stealing or something similar. Still that doesn't really matter, the bells themselves are unimportant, the test is what matters."

"And what's the test?" 'whiskers', as Kakashi was currently referring to him in his head, demanded, still none the wiser than when Kakashi started his 'explanation' but much more annoyed.

"Ah, 'the test'" he nodded sagely "Well the test is pretty simple, not complicated at all, even a complete imbecile could understand it…" he frowned "Which leads me to doubt if you three can, anyway" he shook his head, ignoring the glares he was being sent for his offhand comments "the goal is the bells. You three" he point at each of them in turn "are going to try and take them from me. Once the alarm, set for noon remember, goes off the test is over. Those with bells pass, those without fail."

"But… there are only two bells" Sakura noted, or was it query?

Kakashi eye smiled "So there are."

"I see" she said calmly, and the other two seemed to have figured it out as well "So only two of us can pass this test?"

His smile didn't fade, but he didn't answer either, instead watching as the three first of all pondered, then carefully evaluated each other, then refocused their attention on him when he spoke "You can use any tools at your disposal, even kunai and shuriken, if you don't come at me with the intent to kill, you won't get these bells" his single visible eye opened a touch "and you might not survive either" then his eye smile was back full force "Well then" he looked from each of them, Naruto looked positively pissed off, but determined, Sasuke looked much the same only his determination was more hidden under piles of raw anger and hatred, and Sakura stared at him with determination equal to her two teammates but with less anger "begi…"

Naruto was off before he had even started, a kunai in hand, poised to stab him in the stomach. A second later the blonde found himself face down, a foot pressing against the back of his head, the kunai he had been planning on stabbing his sensei with being twirled casually by its ring on said sensei's little finger.

"Let me finish blondie, then try to kill me" he chuckled "Still, at least I know one of you is coming at me with the intent to kill" he looked over at Sasuke and Sakura, both had moved into defensive stances, but neither had moved to help, and one look in their eyes told him everything he needed to know _'And now I know two more of them will as well. Good, maybe they'll put up more of a fight than last year's batch' _he removed his foot from Naruto's head and stepped back, letting the blonde stand and back away to where his teammates stood "Okay, then…" he left a long pause, waiting to see if any of them moved "Be-…" he left another shorter pause "…gi-…" another small pause and a glance around "…-n."

A hail of kunai and shuriken hammered into him, each of his three students tossing fifteen plus each, then, as the bleeding and stabbed Kakashi began his long descent to the ground, he vanished in a cloud of smoke, replaced by a wooden log.

"Substitution" Naruto murmured, spitting at the log.

Sasuke scoffed and disappeared into the trees, stopping only long enough to grab his pack, leaving Naruto and Sakura out in the open. Naruto spent the time removing all the kunai and shuriken from the log and placing them in his pouch, but he gave a handful of about sixteen over to Sakura "Here, they're yours" Sasuke had fucked off so Naruto was claiming his batch, but Sakura could have her weapons back.

Sakura nodded a thank you and stowed them away, then they both grabbed their own packs and disappeared into the trees, splitting up and heading their own ways. For the sake of this test they were rivals at best, at worst enemies. But… Sakura stopped on a branch, under the pretext of catching her breath and making a plan, and instead thought about the test a bit more.

Several minutes later she had come to no conclusion, if anything she had more questions _'I've never heard of a Genin team with only two Genin… and sensei didn't specify much of the details. Will the Genin who pass this test then be reassigned with the other?'_ their sensei hadn't been too big on the specifics in fact, most of it he left for them to figure out, them being Sakura. All he said was that those with a bell at noon would pass. Sakura bit her lip, she wasn't sure what it was yet but something about the test didn't add up.

An explosion off in the distance brought her back to reality. Her rivals were making their moves, she had limited time, and certainly not enough to ponder this forever, and if they got the bells before her then it was game over, so it was time to get started. Checking her pouch and pack for what she knew was there Sakura nodded. She had a plan.

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Several minutes previously Kakashi wandered back out into the clearing again, just stepping into the sunlight like he was taking an afternoon stroll, and looked around _'Well, it looks like they all know how to hide themselves and can do so effectively. Good' _he knew where all three of them were, with a three millimetre margin of error, and what they were doing, but it was an impressive attempt from three newbie Genin.

"So, Mr Short Dark and Broody" he said "What's the plan?" he turned his one visible eye onto where Sasuke was hidden amidst the foliage. Unlike his teammates he was close to the outer edge of the trees, while both of them were pretty deep by now "Are you going to use traps? Jutsu? Or just attack me head on? Well whatever, it won't make any difference" through the leaves their eyes met, black on black "_You_ can't beat me."

A hail of kunai rained on his position and Kakashi made a short leap to the side, it was a little more than a hop, and let them slam uselessly into the dirt and trees.

But Sasuke wasn't done, immediately after a row of shuriken rushed towards him and Sasuke was on the move, leaping through the trees. He might be repositioning himself, he might he trying to lure Kakashi away, he might just be running away. Kakashi didn't follow, whatever his plan. He caught the shuriken, all of six of them, spread like a pack of cards between his thumb and forefinger, then dumped them with the kunai.

The next thing Kakashi noticed was _'Chakra!' _he spun and found Sasuke exactly where Kakashi knew he was, running through seals and with his chakra building _'Those hand signs are…' _he let a faint smile show on his face_ 'As expected from Itachi's younger brother.'_

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu" Sasuke curled his hands over his mouth, forming a barrel of sorts using only his fingers and palm, and it was through his barrel that he blew fire. The fireball hit where Kakashi was stood, and Sasuke upped his chakra output, thus upping the flames intensity.

With enough power to burn the earth below it into ash, those flames could certainly do the same to a human body, and as the flames died away all Sasuke could see was ash.

But…

He leapt, twisting in mid-air and throwing more shuriken, as Kakashi shot out of the earth behind where he had stood moment ago, in the perfect position to slice open his neck without him even noticing. Not one of them hit true.

'_Earth Release?' _Sasuke thought, staring at the tunnel that Kakashi was stepping out of, his thrown shuriken held casually in the Jonin hand _'Well, whatever, all I have to do is…' _his face set into grim determination.

Kakashi looked at Sasuke as he stepped out of the tunnel _'Well, jutsu, head on attack, but no traps yet. So three guesses what's next, and the first two don't count' _did Sasuke really think that rope he set up, which when cut would release a number of weapons, was that subtle? Kakashi could only presume that, yes he did think it was that subtle.

Sasuke shot off, throwing kunai as he ran away, Kakashi played along and gave chase, dancing around the kunai, playing an old but dangerous game called 'How close can to the kunai can you get before someone ends up seriously injured and you're all punished?' It was a fun game, one he had played as a Genin, and Kakashi was something of an expert at it, as evidenced by letting a kunai actually brush the fabric of his mask, but not leaving even the faintest of cuts.

Soon they were amidst the trees and Kakashi, all too aware he was being led along, continued after Sasuke's retreating back. A kunai was thrown but not at him, instead it was thrown far to his left and cut the rope there.

Tanto slammed into his body, ten or twenty of them, all hitting within a couple of seconds, that number of knives stabbing anybody was sure to leave them dead, and Kakashi's body disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving only an impaled log behind.

Sasuke, who had stopped to watch, was suddenly wide eyed and he looked around quickly.

"So" Kakashi said, placing a hand on the boys shoulder "It would seem like your plans were for naught, you're jutsu for naught, all the strength and skill you obtained worthless" Sasuke turned his head to glare at Kakashi, as his hand twitched towards a kunai "So… since yours failed, how about I go on the offensive?" he didn't wait for an answer, instead his foot met Sasuke's back and sent the boy flying. He didn't stop there, instantly he was at Sasuke's landing point and punched him in the gut before the kid even got a chance to hit the dirt. He slammed his forearm over the back of the boys head to make him fall faster and with Sasuke's face in the dirt, he finally stopped his short lived but intense offensive, and reached into his pouch.

Looking upwards Sasuke found his sensei reaching for a kunai, and he tried to escape. But he wasn't fast enough and his sensei had already pulled forth his weapon… or at least Sasuke had assumed it was a weapon.

But it wasn't. It wasn't a kunai, or a tanto, or a dagger, or anything even vaguely similar, it wasn't even a coil of rope, it was a book, a bright orange book with a cartoonish picture of a man and a woman on the front. Kakashi didn't say a word to him, merely opened his book, turned, and walked away, leaving Sasuke lying on the ground with one parting comment "I guess that's all the Uchiha are worth nowadays."

His anger burned like a wildfire, like the flames he had summoned previously. He was being treated like a child, the Jonin hadn't been serious for even a moment, but more importantly than that this bastard dared to insult his family. With rage building with him Sasuke channelled his chakra towards his eyes, red taking over the onyx orbs.

Kakashi spun and blocked the jab aimed at his back, and his eye went wide "The Sharingan!" he exclaimed, his previous aloofness slipping for a moment. He wasn't expecting that. Fire jutsu that no Genin could perform, impeccable Taijutsu, and reasonable trap making skills where one thing, but the Sharingan was a whole other matter.

He struggled to block with only one arm free as Sasuke's attack continued, his punch flowing seamlessly into a sweeping kick. Kakashi leapt over it but Sasuke was ready for that as well, his superior eyes, with a single tomoe circle the pupil, giving him the clarity he needed. Sasuke twisted his fist out of Kakashi's blocking palm, continuing with the momentum of his kick and turning his back on the enemy, not a good move true, but Sasuke lashed back with an elbow jab at his airborne opponent.

Kakashi blocked it on his palm but was forced back a short distance before landing. Sasuke rushed him, jabbing quickly at his weak points. Kakashi continued to hold him off with one arm, letting a few lesser blows hit to focus on the more dangerous attacks.

Finally the Jonin had had enough and as Sasuke rushed him again, charging him with a simple punch, he moved faster than Sasuke could register and grabbed his wrist, tossing him at a nearby tree. The force of the slam stunned Sasuke for a moment or two and gave Kakashi the time to put his book away. Only he didn't put it away, instead he flicked over a page casually.

"I'll confess, I wasn't expecting to see the Sharingan here today, but it doesn't seem to have helped you much now does it?" he commented blandly.

Sasuke struggled to his feet and fell into a stance, but Kakashi simply shook his head. This fight was over.

"By the way ducky, you should probably strip."

Sasuke blinked "Ducky?" he frowned again "Strip?"

Kakashi sighed, kids these days "The back of your hair" he said deadpan.

Sasuke frowned and thought about it, then scowled darkly, "Fuck you Cyclops!"

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before" he would've rolled his eyes, but couldn't take his eyes away from what he was reading, after all what was happening to Honoka-chan was far more interesting than the inside of his eyes lids "Anyway, _ducky_" he stressed the nickname in an attempt to exacerbate Sasuke's current annoyance. It worked "Strip."

A harsh scowl took over the Uchiha's pale face "Strip?" why would Kakashi tell him to do something like that. It was such an odd thing to say that Sasuke couldn't even find it in himself to be annoyed or disgusted by the implications.

"Yeah, strip" Kakashi eye smiled at him and began calmly walking away, not sparing Sasuke another glance.

It was then, and only then, that Sasuke heard it. A faint hissing sound, so distinct from that of a snake, it was sound he had heard several times before, mostly during training, sometimes during training accidents, and he was certain that, without a doubt it was a…

He looked down and found that he was right. Stuck on the front of his shirt was an explosive tag, sizzling away like there was no tomorrow.

Sasuke had never undressed quicker in his life, he had never thrown his clothing with such desperation before, and had never run quite so fast before that moment in his short but bitter existence.

**BOOM!**

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Naruto turned at the explosion, half wondering if his competition had been taken down, half wondering if Kakashi had been taken down, the final half wondering about when he could get some grub. He was starving, his stomach was trying to ingest itself it was so bad, that feeling like he had swallowed a gallon of acid was distracting him, but also driving him. He'd teach that silver haired son of bitch a lesson on denying Naruto food.

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Stood in a circle of kunai and shuriken and even a pair of axes, Kakashi could quite happily compliment the teams Kunoichi on her trap making and placing and concealing skills "Those were some rather impressive traps" and so he did "For a Genin" kind of.

He had spent the last fifteen minutes being bombarded by weaponry, it was rather annoying when a trap you activated had a backup trap in case you avoided it, but it was really annoying when a backup trap had a backup trap, and he wasn't even going to start on how annoying it was when a backup backup trap had a backup trap. So you can imagine that he wasn't too thrilled at the backup backup backup traps backup trap.

Still he had avoided them all, and without losing his place in his book which was nice. Honoka-chan was currently taking it like the dirty bi… and he stopped his thoughts there before someone accused him of being sexist. And he wasn't, he read porn in public but certainly didn't objectify women, at least no more so than he objectified men.

Whether or not someone would accuse him of being sexist because of personal private thoughts that he would share with practically no one, and quite possibly literally no one, was unimportant.

Getting back to the matter at hand, the backup backup backup traps backup trap, which just so happened to be a pair of swinging axes that were currently lying on the ground with the rope cut, Kakashi could confess to be very pleased with Sakura's trap making and positioning skills.

'_I wonder if she realised that facing me one on one would be suicide, even if I wasn't taking it seriously, which I'm not' _if he had been taking this seriously, and when he said seriously he meant facing off against enemy ninja type seriously, then they'd all be dead already. But he wasn't so there weren't.

"So, pinky" he said looking up from his book directly at a tree several metres in front of him "What's next? Given the thought you put into these traps I'm guessing you have a backup plan, and if you don't…" his single eye glinted darkly and he said nothing more.

The illusion of the tree vanished and Sakura stood in its place.

Kakashi turned his eyes back to his book and waited. He felt an increase in chakra and a smile worked its way across his face, though his eyes didn't move from the long and detailed description of Honoka's sexual misdemeanours _'How interesting.'_

He was surrounded on all sides by cherry blossoms that flew in the air as if swept up in a hurricane, a hurricane centred on Kakashi. He flicked over to the next page. It was a rather good Genjutsu, he'd give her that, but there were flaws. The cherry blossoms that hit his face left no sensation of touch, he couldn't smell even the faintest whiff of the cherry blossoms scent and while to most people that might be normal Kakashi's nose was exceptionally good, and also they didn't make much of a sound besides a general windy noise… unlike the shuriken hidden amongst the blossoms.

He caught them before they hit, snatching them out of the air without even looking and dropping them to the ground with the rest. There'd be a small armoury on the ground around him soon enough.

More whirred in, their distinct noise giving them away and Kakashi squatted, ducking below the whole row of them, then he closed his book "Alright then."

The illusion shattered and Kakashi was nowhere to be seen, Sakura looked around searching for him, a kunai held defensively in one hand, the other palming her pouch.

"Nice try" a whisper was all the warning she got, before a kunai stabbed through her throat "But I won't be fooled so easily" Sakura's body fell apart, pink cherry blossoms floating away on the wind.

From up in the trees Sakura searched for who had thrown the kunai but found no one, she couldn't even get a hint on the location it had been thrown from. Her Cherry Blossom Double hadn't fooled him for a second, and he'd killed it to prove a point, to prove the futility of her quest even further. But why? If he had left it alone she would've thought him fooled, and become less cautious. Instead he gave her a warning, and still hadn't even attempted an attack.

All these questions where making her head hurt and Sakura rubbed at her forehead through the forehead protector to try and ease the ache, she felt so confused. What was going on with this test? What was it purpose? Why was it happening? What was happening?

… What was she doing?

"Release" she stopped her chakra, then let it surge, shattering the illusion Kakashi had cast on her.

Instead of finding herself in the trees, where she had vanished to after putting Kakashi in her Cherry Blossom Slash illusion, with a clear mind, Sakura found herself stood on the ground, with the silver haired Jonin in front of her reading his book, in almost the exact positioning they had been before she had cast the Cherry Blossom Slash illusion at all.

'_He had me under Genjutsu since back then?' _she hadn't noticed, at all.

"You're not the only one who can cast Genjutsu" Kakashi said amusedly, eyes not leaving his book.

Sakura nodded, agreeing with his statement. She wouldn't forget that. She leapt into the trees, making a tactical retreat, or running away as some might call it. That was fine though, running away from someone stronger than you, she could and did do that and felt no shame about it either. He had avoided all of her traps, and she had been using lethal ones, he had used a Genjutsu on her without her even noticing, and he hadn't taken advantage of these flaws, instead he played along like he was humouring a child.

Maybe that was exactly what he was doing Sakura wondered, glancing back through the trees but seeing only leaves. She was too far to see him now anyway.

She needed to rethink her strategy, and rethink this test.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kakashi smiled fondly as he read an enormously pleasant, decidedly tasteful, and immensely realistic paragraph… all about how Honoka-chan loved taking it up the arse. It was one of his favourite in the whole book, Honoka-chan was perhaps his favourite girl… or maybe it was Tsusumi-chan… or Kiyomi-chan… No actually, Kakashi decided that they were all his favourite, but he was reading Honoka-chan's chapter right now so she was his favourite at this moment in time.

"So, whiskers" he called out to the blonde who was casually sat staring at him from a branch, not even trying to hide and not yet trying to attack "What are you doing for this test?"

Naruto leapt down and landed nimbly on his feet "Let me pass."

Kakashi blinked, that was a new strategy, just demanding to be passed, he had to give the kid credit for originality but… "No. Not gonna happen."

Naruto didn't get angry as was expected, and while he didn't look pleased if Kakashi wasn't very much mistaken there was a glint of satisfaction in his blue eyes.

Which only served to confuse the slightly confused Jonin even more _'Is he… happy, that I said no to him?' _Kakashi shook his head_ 'What an odd kid. Oh well, odd is good, better than boring I guess, although boring can be nice at times' _"Well whatever. How we gonna do this, blondie?" he asked, turning over a page.

"Like this" Naruto's answer was accompanied, or perhaps further explained, by a set of fifteen or so kunai flying through the air at Kakashi.

'_Ah the good old kunai, truly the most versatile of the ninja tools. It can be used as a handheld weapon, a thrown weapon, a distraction, a weight, a makeshift trowel, a dildo, it's just… perfect' _he finally decided on a word, just as the knives struck deep… into a log "You're not gonna hit me like that kid, try harder next time… and work on your aim, seriously, how'd you end up hitting that log, I'm nowhere near the log" Kakashi said, leaning over Naruto's shoulder.

Naruto glanced back at the silver haired ninja, and gulped. Without him even noticing Kakashi had managed to get right behind him, and while all the Jonin did was lean over his shoulder, he could've just as easily planted a kunai between his shoulder blades. He spun suddenly, releasing a wave of shuriken. Kakashi leapt cleanly over them, landing back where he had stood before, and casually flipping onto the next page of his book. Naruto had used those moments where Kakashi was in the air to put some distance between them, and was warily watching the Jonin, kunai in hand.

Several moments passed, and Kakashi started to get bored "You won't win by staring at me you know."

"Yeah, yeah" Natsu said, shaking his head. He tossed the kunai and charged, Kakashi sidestepped and avoided it and waited patiently for Naruto to reach him, ignoring the near infinite number of way he could've killed the blonde before he got within two paces of the Jonin.

Sasuke had given Kakashi a pleasant little bout, Naruto did much the same though admittedly his movements weren't anywhere near as fluid as the Uchiha's, nor was he as graceful or as fast, instead he had a good bit more power. His punches packed a good bit of force for such a small boy, and his kicks hit hard, and Kakashi blocked them all, easily countering the moves and making no attempt to take advantage of Naruto's openings.

Kakashi understood why Naruto was number two though, that is why number two and not number one. Sasuke had skill, he could easily get the drop on an opponent, and in Academy regulated matches it was usually first one to step out of the ring or first one to the ground or to a submission hold some stupid rule like that. What Naruto had in spades was stamina, as quarter of an hour alter he was still going strong. His punches hadn't weakened, his movements hadn't slowed, and he shrugged off the few taps Kakashi gave him as reprimands for some of his reckless assaults that left him really open. Thus if the matches were less regulated Naruto might just come out as number one.

It should be made clear that Kakashi's 'taps' tended to leave Naruto face down in the dirt, and packed more force than a hammer blow.

They could both probably keep going like this all day, Kakashi was certain he could, and suspected Naruto could probably do so as well, but there was a small problem.

He was bored.

"Need to do better than that" he taunted flinging Naruto over his shoulder carelessly and storing his book safely away. Naruto scrambled to his feet and rushed at Kakashi's back, coming in jabbing in kicking like his life depended on it. Kakashi blocked, redirected and dodged all of them "Come on!" he snapped, giving Naruto a hard whack on the crown of his head "Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"

Naruto stumbled back, rubbing at his skull, then he grinned up at Kakashi "Alright then" his fingers formed a cross shaped hand sign and a grin tore across his face.

Kakashi stared at the hand sign in shock _'No way! No way a Genin can…'_

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

'_Oh for crying out loud!' _Kakashi sighed.

People really needed to inform him about stuff like this, he knew full well that Naruto couldn't perform the Clone Jutsu to save his life, so why did no one bother to tell him that Naruto could perform the Shadow Clone Jutsu and summon up a good ten of the damn things? For a Genin creating one would be a feat in and of itself, ten was simply incredible.

"Well… I wasn't expecting that" he confessed "More points kiddo. They're worthless, but you can have 'em anyway."

"I'd rather…" one Naruto started "…have a bell…" another continued "…if it's all the same with you…" a third said "…Cyclops-sensei" a final Naruto finished.

"Oh?" Kakashi chuckled "Then come and take it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well…" Naruto, with his back against a tree, and several bruises on his body "…that didn't go anywhere near as well as I hoped it would."

It had been a slaughter, Naruto barley even blinked and his clones were gone, poof like they hadn't been there in the first place, and from there it had been a downhill battle. It was like before Kakashi had just been toying with him, and he probably had been, but now Kakashi was bored of toying so therefore decided to just annihilate him.

Suffice to say, he had succeeded.

"Aren't you going to get a bell?"

Naruto groaned and looked up at where the silver haired Jonin was sat on a branch above him, looking down. He'd been certain he was alone, had lost the Cyclops back there in the woods using a diversion of a few Shadow Clones, and it wasn't like he had been being lax, he had checked his surrounding every couple of minutes and found nothing. But it was all for nothing as Kakashi had found him and avoided his detection with ease. He could've easily put a kunai in Naruto's forehead and instead chose to give away his position.

He forced himself up and took a few steps away from the tree "Well, you're pretty good, I'll give you that."

Kakashi blinked "Thank you?" he had been the one winning… hadn't he? So why was Naruto complimenting him on his skills in an almost degrading fashion, shouldn't it be the other way around?

Naruto grinned at him "Let me kick it up a notch then" he flicked through the hand seals, dog, boar, tiger, monkey, snake, boar, then planted both hands flat on the ground "Chakra Chains Binding!"

'_That's… Kushina's jutsu?' _Kakashi thought as chains erupted from the ground, trying to tangle him up _'Once again, people really need to tell me about this shit' _he slipped out of the attempted binding, which wasn't that difficult. The chains weren't that quick, to someone of Kakashi's speed, and while numerous numbers weren't everything, as he had proven several minutes ago by slaughtering Naruto's clones "Interesting" he commented, watching the chains bind up the tree "Got any other tricks blondie?"

Naruto grinned again "A few" he said, from his wrist a chain emerged, seemingly to emerge from his flesh as if it had been forged inside of his body. He pulled it with his left hand, holding a line of chain in front of him. Then chakra flared up along the length of chain, burning along it like blue flames, the chakra so strong it was visible.

'_Now that isn't one of Kushina's jutsu, alright Naruto, show me what you got.'_

Naruto swung it, spinning the chain above his head like a lasso, the chains still burned with blue chakra, and Kakashi stood there waiting for the climax. Naruto whipped the chain, spinning as he did so, towards Kakashi, letting it stretching in a long wide arc.

Kakashi leapt cleanly over the whip, but he didn't expect what happened next to happen. When the chain hit the tree that had been wrapped in chains, though the chains seemed to have vanished since he last checked, rather than wrapped around it and choke the life from the tree as he expected, it carved clean through like it was a blade rather than a chain.

The chain fell limply to the ground, no longer burning blue as Kakashi landed on his feet, and stared at the falling, falling, falling and now felled tree to his right. He turned his gaze towards Naruto "You missed."

Naruto flicked the chain, gripping it with his right hand, still connected to the wrist of said hand, and ran his left along the length, chakra burning through it again. This time there was no fancy spinning above his head and he just swung downwards. Kakashi leapt to the side, neatly avoiding it. Given what it had done to a reasonably thick tree he did not want to know would what happened if he, a human being, took a blow from that.

It cleaved into the ground, leaving a deep trench and Kakashi could feel a jolt through the dirt wanting to send him skyward. He didn't let it and pretended like it didn't affect him, but he did finally put away his book. This was certainly _a _trick, and Naruto said he had a few. Kakashi didn't believe for a moment that Naruto could win, but at the same time being turned into human pâté wasn't on his list of things to do, and he'd like to keep it there.

Naruto pulled it back, recharging the chain again, then tried to whip Kakashi again.

This time Kakashi didn't simply dodge, he raced straight towards Naruto, the blonde's whip arcing past, and he moved at such speeds that Naruto wouldn't have any time to adjust the trajectory. He gave Naruto a light tap with his index finger in the side of his neck as he slipped by.

Naruto's chain whip slapped into a tree, stabbing deep into the trunk, the blonde rubbed at the bruise Kakashi had left on his neck checked the Jonin wasn't attack, the flicked the whip to remove it from the tree and drew it back into his body, the chain disappearing into his wrist.

"So that didn't work?" Kakashi inquired. Of course it didn't, but he still felt like asking if only to piss of the blonde.

"Fuck you."

"Ouch" Kakashi commented, walking up behind the blonde and bringing his book out again, convinced the danger wasn't over but he felt like acting like he thought it was "You're being rather harsh on me, what did I ever do to deserve such spite, hmm?"

"Plenty" Naruto said not turning around.

'_So he wants me to approach his back' _Kakashi thought, four paces separating them now, he could see the tension in Naruto's muscles, ready to spin around and strike _'Alright then, I'll play along.'_

He took one step "Name one example."

"Showing up late for our team meeting" Naruto said "both of them. And not just a few minutes later either, but several fucking hours late."

He took another "I'm always late. You have no more reason than anyone else to hate me. Name another."

"Treating us like we're a complete waste of your time effort and energy."

Another step "But you are. Another."

"Being a one eyed, silver haired, masked wearing prick!"

Kakashi nodded "Fair enough" he took the final step.

And just as he anticipated Naruto spun, but instead of a kunai, a shuriken, or a chain as he expected, something else entirely was in Naruto's hand. A swirling blue ball of energy.

"RASENGAN!"

So shocked was he by the appearance of his sensei's signature technique in the hands of his sensei's own son that Kakashi forgot to react for a moment, and by that time it was too late. Without even thinking he had grabbed Naruto's wrist, stopping the boy in his attack, and without pausing for a moment he proceeded to break said wrist.

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!" he let Naruto stumble back with his broken wrist, falling over onto his arm and gently cracking the appendage.

'_Oh… shit… I didn't mean to do that. Okay Kakashi evaluate your options, on the one hand you could apologise and lose any cool points you might've earned, on the other hand you could act like you meant to and be super brutal… Super brutal it is' _"Is that it?" he asked coldly, looking down at the blonde with a cruel eye. He slipped his book away unnoticeably, feeling that its presence would damage the evil mean sensei appearance he was presently cultivating "A jutsu you haven't even perfected is your trump card" that Rasengan wasn't anything compared to the true Rasengan, it was likely that Naruto hadn't completed all the stages of learning mastering the technique and was instead making do with an incomplete and imperfect version of it. Kakashi laughed darkly "Your father was a far better ninja than you'll ever be."

"Shut the fuck up!" Naruto screamed "Don't talk to me about that basta-urgh!"

Kakashi kicked him in the face and stepped on the blonde's cheek "Naruto Namikaze" he chuckled darkly "You aren't worthy of that name. Compared to your father you are just pathetic. Petty, and uselessly and arrogant and PATHETIC!"

There was a long pause, and Kakashi was truly afraid that he had gone too far. He couldn't see Naruto's face for his own foot, and when he finally moved it what he feared greeted him.

Tears.

"You think…" Naruto's mumbled "You think I don't know that? You think I don't know that I could never match him? YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT I'LL ALWAYS BE A DISAPPOINTMENT TO HIS FUCKING LEGACY?!" Kakashi stared down at him coldly, hiding the pity he felt beneath a blank mask beneath his real physical mask "Everyone always tells me how great he was, how awesome he was, everything I do he's already done far better. I'm just… just…"

Kakashi sighed audibly "Listen up kid" he removed his foot, and patted Naruto on the head "You don't want to be compared to your father, you hate people who think of Namikaze before Naruto, so why is it _you_ keep thinking about Namikaze. Maybe you should stop thinking about Naruto Namikaze and start thinking about just Naruto, huh?"

Naruto said nothing.

Kakashi smiled sadly behind his mask. Naruto reminded him far too much of himself, his father overshadowed him and while the shame of being Sakumo Hatake's son had hung over Kakashi, until he realised that it was something to be proud of, the _honour_ of being Minato Namikaze's son hung over Naruto, but they were both engulfed in their fathers shadow. But Kakashi wasn't Minato, he didn't know how to deal with himself, and he could not allow a travesty like what had occurred during the Kannabi Bridge mission to occur, so he had to be harsh because it was the only way he knew would get through, and it was the kindest thing he could do. Being cruel to be kind, it would never justify truly, but he didn't know what other options he had.

Kakashi stood straight and Naruto made no move to move "You give up?" he asked neutrally. Not really caring either way, though in truth he was no longer in the mood to fight.

Naruto nodded silently.

"Alright then" the alarm blared loudly.

* * *

Okay so I'm torn between focusing on this or Embers of an Uchiha. I plan to write both ideas to their completion, in time, but I'm not sure as to which I should focus on. So anyway, I'm posting this as well to see what kind of response I get, if any.

Toodles.


	2. The Bell Test Part 2

**Chapter 2: The Bell Test Part 2.**

Sasuke and Sakura both stared at the sight in front of them.

Naruto, who was presently tied up with rope that wrapped from just above his knees to just below his shoulders, a highly inefficient and ineffective form of tying it should be noted, merely stared back at them, before shrugging, or rather attempting to shrug, and looking away nonchalantly, as if nothing was amiss.

Kakashi, sat cross legged atop the post that Naruto was tied too, was far too busy with his book to give a single damn about his student's stares, so ignored them.

In response his black and pink haired students waited for some harsh biting comment to emerge from the other side of the book, something along the lines of 'You're a pathetic waste of human flesh that should just go and die somewhere and feed the earth, that's all your good for'… so maybe their view of Kakashi was a little bit more brutal and crude than the man himself, but then that was what he had been aiming for.

He didn't expect to succeed quiet so spectacularly, however.

Kakashi decided that, before bothering with his students, he'd finish off this chapter. It was a particularly heart breaking scene, with the main character explaining to Tsusumi-chan why they could not be together, and Tsusumi-chan trying to convince him to stay.

Her impressive oral capabilities played a large part in her persuasion tactics. And by impressive Kakashi meant that she could get her tongue all the way from the sack to the back passage while still swallowing the entirety of his massive throbbing… "So…" he eventually said, finding himself at the end of a page and deciding to take the small moment where he was neither of the next page or the current to glance at two of his students "…you all failed."

It wasn't an accusation. There was no tone of failure or chastisement. Nor indeed was their humour or amusement. It was a simple statement of fact. And to be honest that probably pissed them off even more than they already had been.

Sasuke scowled darkly and looked away, refusing to spend another moment even looking at the silver haired Jonin.

Sakura said nothing and tried to keep her expression neutral and unaffected, but the disappointment from the comment that she had been excepting still weighed heavily upon her brow.

The Jonin stowed his book away and leapt down from his seated position, taking a leisurely walk that took him past the two brats before he turned sharply, now the same distance from Sasuke and Sakura that Sasuke and Sakura where from Naruto and the posts. He gestured at the unoccupied posts and Sasuke and Sakura understood and moved to stand against them, awaiting whatever else he had in store, part of them expecting to be tied up like Naruto, another berated harshly, and possibly having their forehead protectors ripped from their brows.

Sasuke took the post on the right and Sakura the one on the left and Kakashi left them to stew for a while, staring at them silently, his single visible eye giving away nothing.

Naruto looked… well quite frankly, bored. He was either that confident that he wouldn't be 'allowed' to fail, genuinely didn't care, or was hiding his own fears behind a mask of bored indifference. Or maybe he was still reeling from the emotional wounds Kakashi had rather brutally ripped open earlier and was still emotionally dead from the pain of them. It was one of them… probably.

Sasuke was impatient, his arms were folded across his chest, the index and middle finger of one of his hands was drumming on the elbow of the other arm, one foot was resting flat against the post while the other kept him planted on the ground, and his body relied on the post itself to make up for his imbalanced position. Oh, and there was a scowl on his face, but that was as obvious as a blue sky and didn't really need mentioning.

Sakura was trying to appear calm, but she was licking her lips quiet frequently, and often would look down, play with her fingers, then realise what she was doing and stand to attention, only to lapse again after several moments. It was like clockwork.

"Tell me…" they all perked up at the sound of his voice, a set of blue, green and black eyes staring at him "…did any of you figure it out?"

Naruto and Sasuke stared at him confusedly, not understanding at all. It was interesting to note how differently they expressed their confusion. Naruto stared at him confusedly with his head tilted to one side, like a little puppy. While Sasuke furrowed his brow and gaze at him intently. He would've probably raised an eyebrow, but it was hard to raise an eyebrow when scowling that ferociously.

But while Sasuke and Naruto were confused, Sakura raised her hand, hesitantly, but she did raise it.

"Yes?" he said, drawing the word out in a long taunting teasing manner.

"You… wanted us to work together, as a team" Sakura began haltingly, when Kakashi nodded she gained a lot more confidence in her answer "I first thought this when I realised that there were two bells. I mean, why two? Why not just one? Also you said that there was a sixty six percent failure rate on this test, but if two of us pass that'd mean there was a sixty six percent pass rate, and if there were only one bell then two of us, sixty six percent, would definitely fail. So the object of the two bells was to divide us and make us rivals, hoping that we would do the opposite and band together and fight as one. I think what you wanted to show us was that we should put our personal goals and glory below that of the objective… I think" she finished lamely.

"You think correctly" Kakashi told her, a small part of him ever so slightly impressed at all she had deducted "Alone none of you stood a chance against me. But together? Now together you just might've gotten the bells… But you didn't. You all went off on your own, did your own thing, and lost, on your own. And lookie here" he tapped the bells on his belt, jingling them softly "I still have the bells. Now…" he eyed smiled brightly, making absolutely sure it was as mocking as was physically possible before he said "…what have you learned today kiddies?"

Only Sakura looked willing to respond, she had raised her hand and while obviously such an action was beyond Naruto without some major wriggling, the look on his face said not only that he really didn't want to answer but also that he knew the answer. He nodded at her "That we should place the mission above our own personal objectives and desires?"

Kakashi's previously pleasant but mocking demeanour changed in an instant to a harsh and cruel one "Are you asking me, or telling me?" he demanded.

Sakura flinched slightly, but responded after taking only a moment to compose herself in a calm voice "Both."

He chuckled "Well, you're entirely correct" he told her, harshness fading like dust on the wind "The reason why I have two bells is to make you guys fight amongst yourself, in the hope that you would see underneath that and realise that you're supposed to work together…" he shook his head "Do you guys think that you were just thrown together as a team at random? The teams were designed for balance, for specialty, for teamwork! More thought went into which team you would be placed in than went into any answer you put on the written test! You guys…" he laughed humourlessly, finding a lot of humour but not wanting to show it when he said "You guys aren't worthy of being ninja."

Sasuke ground his teeth furiously, his anger burning out onto his face, his eyes blazing with the Sharingan, but he didn't try to attack Kakashi in a rage, which was good as sticking Sasuke into the dirt, again, wasn't going to be too much fun.

Easy, but not much fun.

Sakura, on the other hand, was busy contemplating the ground. Not really, but she was staring at it quite intently, and at nothing else.

And lastly Naruto was frowning, and looking confused… or maybe he had an itch at the end of his nose and was scrunching up his face like that in some vain attempt to get rid of it.

For a while he left them to stew, again, he liked his stew well done, very well done in fact, and wandered a small ways away "Hey" he finally called for their attention when he was stood in front of a stone, in full view of the posts but not too close by "brats. Here."

They all turned their gazes, blue, green and red on him in varying states, from irritation bordering on anger, to an attempt to be inscrutable but with relatively obvious interest, and vexation and boredom. That was Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto, respectfully.

"This stone, do you know what it is?" he didn't bother waiting for an answer "This here is a memorial stone, for all those heroes of Konoha… who died in the field, fighting for our village. Everyone name written here is the name of a man or a woman who gave their live for Konoha, for their home, for their loved ones… and for their teammates" he turned to look at his team.

Sasuke was looking away, but the Sharingan that had been blazing angrily in his eyes had faded away, leaving black eyes that were neither cold nor angry, but instead strangely sombre. Sakura was watching solemnly, paying close attention to him. And Naruto had leaned back his head to stare up at the sky, his eyes like deep pools of calm and still water that, although it had no reason to be, seemed sad.

"This stone is a memorial to all those ninja…" Kakashi continued slowly, taking his time to truly impress what he wished them to understand "… the name of my best friend is written here" he told them, not looking at the shocked, confused, or pitying stares of the Genin and instead looking solely at _that _name, carved into the rock.

_Obito Uchiha_.

Kakashi left a moments silence for his lost friend, then turned back to his team, his face stern and with none of the sadness he had before displayed in tone and expression "Listen up. Thanks to Sakura here's smarts, I've decided I'll give you all a second chance. You get one more shot at the bells, and one hour to grab them. But this time, I'll be coming at you seriously, no more playing around… Understand?"

Each of them nodded, their expressions completely serious.

He almost smiled at their faces, he had seen similar looks on faces before they went off to war, and while a rather grim comparison it was not such a dissimilar situation. Instead he eyed smiled bright and cheerfully "But I guess we'll have lunch first" he said in a light tone, right as their stomachs growled in unison "Here" he tossed two bento lunchboxes at Sakura and Sasuke "You give any to Naruto and you all fail."

"Hey!" Naruto whined "Why are you picking on me?"

"Because" was Kakashi's simply inspired and immensely witty answer. He tossed a kunai that cut Naruto loose and turned to walk away as the rope pooled around the blonde's feet "Don't think this is a second chance, and don't think I'm being kind" he said to them, not looking back "The test before was me playing around, the test now will be me fighting, if you don't get your act together, work together and actually become a team, then forget passing the test, you guys might not even live" he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb at the clock he had left on top of the post Naruto had been tied to "You have ten minutes to eat and get ready, then I'm coming for you" he chuckled darkly and looked back them, his single visible eye somehow resembling a deep black tunnel filled with monsters and demons and beasts of the underworld "Try to survive, kay?" then in a swirl of leaves he was gone.

Sasuke's lunch box hit the ground where Kakashi had been stood, its content spilling out across the ground.

"Well that was a waste" Naruto commented blandly, leaning against his own post and staring hungrily at the food all over the ground. He wondered if, even covered in dirt, it would taste nice, then again, right now any at all food would taste nice.

Sakura set her box to one side and folded her arms across her knees, hugging them to her chest. And for a while it went on like that, five minutes passed at least, before finally Sakura decided to try and break the silence. She looked up, glanced at her teammates, looked down, looked back up, said "Um…" then stopped and looked down again.

"…" was all Sasuke said, though the sound of his teeth grinding was quiet audible.

Naruto glanced at his teammate on one side, then glanced at his teammate on the other, rolled his eyes and kicked the post as hard as he could, hurting his ankle he hit so hard "FUCK!" he roared, his sudden outburst drawing some surprise from both his teammates "Fuck this! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! Fuck our lame arse sensei, fuck this shitty test, fuck not having lunch, just FUCK!"

'Fuck' echoed through the training ground for a while, once it had finally died down Sakura spoke up "We should probably lay down some traps" she started "and com…"

"What are you, retarded?" Naruto asked her brusquely, interrupting her sentence "This guy ain't gonna be taken out by traps, or did you not learn that earlier, idiot!" and given that Naruto had gotten, accidently, caught up in a few of her traps that their sensei purposefully didn't set off he knew full we the skill with which she made traps. Didn't change a fucking thing though, traps wouldn't work, the silver haired bastard had probably lived through every trick in the book, and they were expected to defeat him? It was impossible.

"Then what should we do?" Sakura asked him calmly.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Naruto wasn't anywhere near as calm.

"Then why don't you shut up and let smarter people think for you, Namikaze" Sasuke… 'asked'? It was technically a question, but the way Sasuke said it certainly left no doubts as to which answer Sasuke believed Naruto should pick.

Naruto turned a blue eyed glare on the 'Last Uchiha' "Don't fucking call me that you arsehole Uchiha fuck!"

Sasuke was on his feet in a second, his eyes flashing with the Sharingan, his teeth clenched shut, his hand grabbed a fistful of Naruto's jacket, their eyes locked and each burning with a furiously intensity of their own.

They were all on a knife edge temper, well Sasuke and Naruto were at least, and unfortunately neither Naruto nor Sasuke was particularly enjoying said knife edge which in turn caused them to take out their annoyance at each other, which in turn made them both fall over the edge and right into the burning torrent of anger.

"STOP IT!" Sakura raised her voice, screaming at them, then said in a more quiet tone "…please" and slowly but surely, they did just that. Sasuke's had loosened then let go of Naruto's jacket and Naruto backed away, his expression gone from angry to miserable in the space of her words "Listen, we need a good coherent plan to take on sensei, otherwise there's no way we can win" she told them "Traps might not defeat him, but combine together traps and us three and I think we stand a better chance, we just need to figure out a plan and then put it into action."

"Well Miss Brainbox, why don't you figure out the plan, huh? I mean, you figured to this fucking test, right? So a simple little fucking plan out be a fucking cinch, no?" Naruto asked mockingly and aggressively.

Sakura didn't respond, but stared at him blankly and neutrally.

Sasuke didn't even bother with their interaction, his own attention held by his glaring contest with the dirt.

Naruto spat, thankfully not at Sakura, and stalked away from her, muttering curses under his breath, most of them about their _lovely _sensei.

Sakura sighed and turned her own gaze to the ground. It really was hopeless.

When Naruto looked up and found both his teammates staring at the ground, one in impotent rage, the other in simple depression, and it was then that he realised that they were absolutely and completely fucked "We're fucked."

"I noticed" Sakura said.

Sasuke slapped his forehead with his palm, which they both took as his agreement.

Naruto shook his head "Hey listen up, I have a plan" he called to the both of them, drawing their gaze, though neither looked terribly hopeful "It's not exactly ingenious, or clever, or guaranteed not to fail or anything like that, but…" he shrugged "It's what I got."

"I'm listening" Sasuke said, Sakura nodding in agreement.

"Alright, when the Cyclops makes his appearance, I flood him, and while he's distracted by me you guys try and take the bells."

Sasuke snorted "Not ingenious… Bit of understatement, Nami…" he hesitated "Naruto" he said instead, hoping Naruto wouldn't notice the correction.

"Well excuse me for being a fucking moron" Naruto said annoyed, but not too annoyed. He had noticed the correction "You got a better idea?"

He didn't respond for a moment but eventually the Uchiha shook his head.

"Wouldn't it be better if you and Sasuke flooded him and I tried to retrieve the bells?" Sakura said, breaking the tense atmosphere between her two teammates and hopefully drawing their attention away from their anger.

Sasuke considered it, with a scowl obviously "Advantage in numbers I guess" he mused "The two of us might be able to distract him long enough for Sak…" he stopped talking as Naruto started laughing "What?" Sasuke asked angrily

"Numbers" Naruto chuckled, as if the word was intensely amusing to him "Rest assured numbers won't be a problem" Naruto told them, grinning "That silver haired bastard will be facing all the numbers he can handle… well, all the numbers I can handle rather, otherwise…" otherwise he would've won earlier and they wouldn't be in this mess, or at least Naruto wouldn't be.

Sasuke and Sakura shared a confused look, which they then turned on Naruto who sighed.

"Watch" he told them, forming his hands into a cross shape hand sign "Shadow Clone Jutsu" a small cloud of smoke burst into existence next to him, clearing away to reveal another Naruto. Both Naruto's then lifted their hands up and high fived, the resulting sound of flesh on flesh telling Sakura and Sasuke everything they needed to know.

"Solid clones?" Sakura said, staring at it. That was an impressive skill, they certainly didn't get taught that in the academy.

"Yep" Naruto said, nodding "And I can make more than a fucking few of them… And when I say more than a fucking few, I mean upwards of a hundred."

'_A hundred?' _the amount of chakra it would take to make a hundred normal clones, that weren't even solid, would likely leave her laying on the ground half dead, which made Naruto's feat impressive, but also made her doubt its authenticity. It took her a moment to push away her doubt, deciding to trust her teammate for the moment "Does sensei know you've got that jutsu?" she asked, her mind working furiously, her fingers toying with themselves in front of her navel.

"Yeah" Naruto said, wincing "But I only created ten or so when I fought him" he grinned again "He's got no idea just how many I can make" the clone, seeing that its purpose was fulfilled, disappeared with a poof "If they take a blow they go poof though, but they can hit, use jutsu, scout, they're pretty useful to be honest."

Sakura nodded and then all of a sudden her fingers stopped and a small smile twitched onto her face, before she wiped it clean of expression "I have some adjustments to your plan."

"Go ahead."

Sasuke turned himself so that he was facing the two of them.

"Firstly though, when you make multiple clones does it come with the same smoke cloud that that one did?" Naruto nodded "Good, then you create as many clones as you can, then Sasuke and I" she glanced at her other teammate "use the smoke screen that creates to transform into you without being seen. If you can have two of your clones transform into me and Sasuke then disappear into the woods that might give us a better advantage in surprise, you said they can use jutsu right? Well sensei might be distracted if it works, wondering where _we_ are going to attack from" Naruto nodded again, he could do that "In the meantime, while you flood him with clones, we'll be looking for an opening to grab the bells" Sakura frowned and looked nervously at her two teammates, it wasn't exactly brilliant "So, what do you think?"

They both nodded, it was a decent plan, and better than anything they could've come up with. But one thing was bothering the resident blonde "And if it all goes tits up?" he asked.

"Then we improvise" she said simply.

The three of them shared a look that held very little hope, and silence once again took hold. They didn't have much time left before the test started though, and so Naruto quickly broke that silence "I can also create chains, like this" he demonstrated, forming a chain from his wrist "And use a chain binding jutsu, though sensei escape it easily before" he confessed "I can charge the chains with chakra to increase their impact as a whip, of sorts. I got another jutsu, but…" his wrist flexed "But it's not complete yet."

For several moments Sasuke stared intently at the blonde, then turned to Sakura "I have several fire jutsu. The Great Fireball, which speaks for its self, Phoenix Sage Fire, which creates several small fireballs, Dragon Fire which runs flames along a cord or wire or…" he glanced at Naruto "Or a chain, I guess. And also" his eyes flashed red "I have the Sharingan, my clan's bloodline."

Sakura nodded and, once she was certain he was done, spoke for herself "I can use two minor genjutsu, though sensei defeat both of them. But with you distracting him he might not notice or have the time to release them. One summons a tornado of cherry blossoms around the target, to allow for shuriken to pass by unnoticed, and I can also create a double of me that can talk and move, but it can't interact physically with anything, and I'm not bound by its movements, any more than it is by mine."

So" Naruto and Sasuke both looked at Sakura as she finished her own skill list, Naruto was grinning, Sasuke wasn't smiling but wasn't scowling either, and Naruto was talking "can you work all of this into our plan?"

Sakura felt another tiny smile twitch onto her features "I think so."

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Staring through the foliage Kakashi watched his team.

All three were loitering around the posts. Naruto had taken up Kakashi's previously position on top of the centre post, and was making regular sweeps of the surroundings. Sasuke was sat against the middle post, sitting rather sprawled out and looking very bored. Sakura was leaning her chin on her palm and was tapping her cheek with her fingers in a discernable rhythm, and was sat against the middle post on the opposite side to Sasuke.

He waited for a time, and waited, and waited, and waited, and finally Naruto spoke up.

"You know, he might not come" Naruto said loudly, drawing the attention of his two lower teammates "I mean that he might want us to find him. He did say he was gonna come for us after ten minutes though…"

"He might be stalking his prey" Sakura inputted, making her own sweep of their surroundings "He could even be watching us right now."

'_Sakura's rather intelligent isn't she? Now if only she would notice me, then I'd be seriously impressed.'_

"Or he might be waiting for the timer to run out, or he might have run away and gone into the village, or he might be one of us" Sasuke said grumpily "Who gives a fuck about might be's, let's focus on what is. He's not here, we don't have the time to wait forever. Time's on his side not ours, so we need to start hunting him. Try to flush him out" he said to Naruto.

"Eh? Me…" Naruto scratched the back of his head unsurely "Won't that give away our entire game plan, a bit of it at least."

"It won't matter if we've got the best strategy in whole world if we can't use it, better to bring him out into the open so that we can use it or a variation of it, than to sit and wait for the perfect moment and run out of time."

"He's right" Sakura agreed "Flush him out."

Naruto grinned "Alright, something to do, finally. I was getting bored" he formed a hand sign.

'_So they have a strategy, one they're confident in, and it involves Naruto's Shadow Clones… well done kiddies' _Kakashi smiled gently.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

'_Wait… what?' _Kakashi stared blankly at the massive cloud of smoke that now covered most of the central clearing of the training ground _'Okay, now it's one thing for a Genin to be able to perform the Shadow Clone jutsu at all, it's another for them to able to create ten whole clones, but to use the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu, a Kinjutsu, forbidden because of its tendency to kill the user, and create more than a hundred of the fucking things… just how was this guy graded a dead last?!'_

"Alright bros" Naruto said to his amassed self's "You know the score. Draw out the one eyed bastard and kill him if you can" the blonde punched his fist into the air "Lets fuck him up!"

"FUCK YEAH!" the Naruto clones said in near unison, punching the air just as their creator did, before throwing all the kunai they had in their pouches at the trees around the edge of the clearing.

Kakashi, who had been lounging around in one of said trees, was thus treated to the sight of a literal wall of deadly sharp kunai flying at him desperate to stab into his soft flesh and be bathed in his warm red lifeblood.

Like he hadn't seen that before.

He dropped down behind the tree, letting the kunai thud uselessly into the trunk _'That wasn't very nice, you could've seriously hurt me with that' _with roars and cheering and the sound of many feet thudding into the dirt the Naruto's had charged into the woods and almost immediately two of them were dead, hit in the back of the head with Kakashi's own kunai.

Kakashi leapt back up into his tree, just as a chain wrapped around the trunk at his former chest height.

Looking into the clearing he found Naruto staring at his directly in the woods, with a hundred odd clones stood before him, and Sasuke stood next to him his hands running through hand seals "Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu!" and the tree he was stood on burst into a wild raging fire.

"Whew, that could've been nasty" Kakashi, stood in the centre of the Naruto clones.

"What?!"

"Shit how did he get here?!"

"I didn't notice at all."

Kakashi eyed smiled at Naruto and Sasuke as the chains retracted itself into Naruto's wrist "Let's go then" he then proceeded to decimate the clones. With a pair of kunai in his hands he simply sped through the crowds, slashing and dodging with ease and grace. Sasuke chased after him, tossing shuriken that tended to hit the Naruto clones more than Kakashi. Mostly because Kakashi was that good at dodging.

Cherry blossom filled his vision.

His hands came together in a hand sign "Relea…" but before he could Sasuke was attacking him again and Kakashi was forced to respond. Even without his eye he was still a potent shinobi. His ears finely honed, his nose could pick up a days old scent, and even the vibrations of the air on his skin gave him an indication as to the direction of the attack.

In other words a blind Kakashi was still worth several of a Sharingan wielding Sasuke, as Sasuke would soon learn to his pain and busted nose.

He kicked the Uchiha away and formed the seal "Release!" and his vision was clear again, and he was surrounded by Naruto's. Briefly he spotted Sasuke and Sakura jumping into the woods, or so they'd like him to believe. The real Sasuke and Sakura were in fact hidden amongst the clones, transformed to blend in to their surroundings, their surroundings being filled with numerous Naruto's. Kakashi wasn't fooled for a moment, but he had to commend whoever came up with that idea, it was definitely Sakura, the other two… well… yeah, it was Sakura.

Still if Kakashi wasn't a Jonin, an extremely skilled Jonin at that, he might've been fooled. Most Chunin would've been fooled and he knew more than a few Jonin who would be as well. But not Kakashi Hatake, he was of a higher class than the common rabble, which was a shame as Kakashi rather liked the rabble.

"Show me what you got" he beckoned for them.

And he did… sadly it wasn't much more than Kakashi had seen earlier and the clones were pretty easy to deal with despite their intimidating numbers. Intimidating to anyone not Kakashi, obviously, he wasn't at all intimidated. He was Kakashi Hatake after all, in the fact the most he felt about the clones was… bored.

Sasuke and Sakura didn't do too good at blending either as they tried to stay out of the way which was the exact opposite of what the Naruto's were doing which was charging bluntly, and so two Naruto's hanging back was a tad too obvious.

On the whole though Kakashi could quiet happily say that they had done good… obviously not to them, he wouldn't tell them that if his life depended on it. Well that was a lie, if his life depended on it he would, but otherwise he wasn't too keen on admitting it. But to anyone he respected enough to be honest to Kakashi would quiet happily say that they had done reasonably well.

The endless attack of the Naruto's continued for a good ten or so minutes… and it was then that Kakashi got really bored.

'_You two have stayed out of the fight for long enough' _he thought, leaping over a Naruto, then stepping on another's head and making his way across the sea of blonde like that, using skulls as his stepping stones and heading straight towards the two he knew where his other Genin.

And it seemed they realised they were being targeted, but they realised it far too late.

He grabbed a hold of each of their arms and threw them into the surrounding Naruto's, the transformation not holding up as they both suffered multiple collisions with multiple Naruto's who popped when they struck and then they continued flying into the next.

"So… that was a waste of ten minutes. Got anything else?" he asked the two of them as Naruto's converged upon him.

A circle of kunai flew from him, with barely a visible movement on Kakashi's part, and each slammed into the forehead of a Naruto. Thankfully they were all clones or else Kakashi would've had a corpse to deal with, and he really didn't want to explain to the Third Hokage that he had accidently killed his successor's son during their _real _Genin Test. That would not be a pleasant conversation.

Sasuke stood, his Sharingan blazing. Sakura stood with a pair of kunai in hand.

Kakashi beckoned for them to come.

A chain swept through even as they charged. Kakashi leapt over it, and Sasuke and Sakura did the same, leaping in tandem and their prior motion carrying them forwards in the air, then they were on him. The dangerous edges of Sakura's kunai flashed, her grip on the constantly shifting into reverse and back to keep him on his toes. Sasuke's skill in taijutsu once again impressed as he drew most of Kakashi's attention letting Sakura get very close to hitting a few lucky blows.

But in the end they couldn't win.

Kakashi's fist smashed into Sasuke's cheek sending the boy tumbling down, and he grabbed Sakura by her hair, tossing her away. Naruto clones were instantly on him, not giving him the chance to take advantage of the other twos weakened state.

A chain whipped at him, it was short enough to be whipped at speed but long enough to keep Kakashi at a distance while attacking. Kakashi just grabbed it and yanked the clone towards him, punching it on the top of its head when it got close. The chain vanished in his hand, and the clones vanished beneath his fist.

"These clones are starting to annoy me" Kakashi commented blandly, hitting a few carelessly and taking a couple more out of the running. There were still a good hundred odd left to go, but every little helps. Kakashi smiled "I know!" he pulled out a set of seven kunai and threw them out in a rough circle. They each hit a clone deep within the army of Naruto's, and quiet a distance from Kakashi, and exploded.

"Explosions solve everything" Kakashi said, as only ten or twenty clones remained in existence, and they were easy to deal with. In fact he could handle them with one hand, and did so tossing at speed twenty shuriken and hitting them in the legs. Why the legs? Because if the real Naruto happened to be amongst them he didn't want to end up killing him, as he previously noted that would be a hassle to deal with, so wounding him was infinite preferable. Kakashi wouldn't even be reprimanded for a wound, not officially anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"That arsehole, he used explosive notes. Is he trying to kill us?" Naruto said from his position, hidden behind a tree. Luckily Sasuke had noticed the chakra in the notes with his chakra sensitive Sharingan and they'd been able to escape, otherwise they might've ended up as crispy fried barbeque, or crispy burnt barbeque rather, it was hard to cook precisely with explosions.

"He might be" Sakura said in response.

Sasuke was silent for a moment "You know something, that's given me an idea" Sasuke said, staring at the several craters that littered the clearing they had been fighting in. Sakura and Naruto and Sasuke had all hidden behind the same tree, and given that Sasuke was the only one with any idea what had been going on when he told them 'Run' he honestly couldn't blame them. Plus it made informing them of his own personal strategy rather simple. Naruto had come up with the original idea, Sakura had modified it into something better, and now Sasuke was going to use a bit of both and some silver haired inspiration to try and defeat their sensei… or at least blow him to kingdom come "Naruto, I need you to send out some clones to keep sensei busy. Small assault groups, five or ten clones at most" Naruto nodded and created roughly fifty clones which split into groups of five to ten and all the numbers in between and spread out to attack from all sides of the clearing "Good, now do either of you have any explosive tags?"

"I do" Sakura said, reaching into her pouch.

"How many?"

"Um" Sakura flicked through them, making a rough count "Twenty or so."

"Naruto, I need you to create about the same numbers of clones again, twenty of them will be stuck with explosive tags and will try to surround sensei, and then…" he smirked viciously, thinking of the blacked corpse their sensei would become "Boom."

Naruto grinned just as darkly, the idea of the silver haired Jonin being splattered all over the training ground was as appealing to Naruto as it was to Sasuke "Sasuke, A) this is an insane plan, B) its fucking brilliant and C) what are we waiting for?"

Sakura rolled her eyes at Naruto's response, but nodded "So long as they can get close enough without sensei noticing."

"How should we do that?" Sasuke asked her, figuring that she would have some idea.

Sakura toyed with her fingers for a moment "We could go in ourselves and hope we get out in time, that out to put him off guard and he won't suspect… well, this at least. Or we could send in transformed Shadow Clones, but he'd probably notice like last time" Sakura felt someone take the explosive notes from her hand and found that there were surrounded by Naruto's. The fact that she had been so lost in thought that she hadn't noticed Naruto making his clones irritated her. She needed to be more aware of her surroundings.

"I'm guessing we're going with the former" Naruto said as his five of his clones went about sticking twenty of the others with tags. Twenty three to be exact. Sakura had started the day with thirty, but sensei had avoided her explosive tag traps completely, instead of letting them go off and dealing with them then, and she hadn't thought to retrieve them.

Sakura nodded "We go in, the real us, with the clones. If we can, let's just charge at him, us and the clones, and at the last moment we three pull back and leave sensei to get blasted. If the clones are forced to fight he might accidently kill one of the tagged clones and uncover the plan, and guarding those clones in particular will show that something is amiss. We need sensei to be unprepared for this to work."

"That's what we'll do then. You two ready?" Sasuke asked.

"Wait" Naruto said, his hands forming back into the cross shaped seal "Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu" Naruto created another fifty odd clones "The more there are the less likely he'll hit the tagged ones" Naruto explained at their questioning looks "Sensei's just about dealt with our advanced assault party, so we need to move fast."

Sasuke and Sakura both wondered for a moment how Naruto knew that, but they put it to one side for now. Which was short for they'd put it out of their minds but try to remember to ask later, they'd then fail and forget the incident, never remembering it again until years later when the same question occurred to them and then feel like complete idiots.

"Let's go then."

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The last of this group of clones was ended in a heartbeat, and a quick sweep revealed that there were no other groups, at least not besides the rather large group just hidden behind the trees to his left.

'_So, what's there plan this time' _he wondered, rubbing at the edge of his forehead through the cloth of his forehead protector _'…and it better not be a charge attack, those are boring. Come on brats, give me something fun and entertaining… You know what, I have a fun game we can play…' _Kakashi smiled amusedly behind his mask, holding back his giggles. Now that would be fun, what he just thought of that is, and so he formed a hand seal.

And a few seconds later Sasuke and Sakura burst through the foliage, charging at him.

'_What's the betting that you can land even a blow on me?' _Kakashi thought, his smile not fading _'Tell you what, if you can manage it I'll challenge Guy to a marathon, and if you can't I'll fail you' _he had to bite his lip to hold back his amusement. There was nothing more fun than playing around with potential Genin, well there was playing around with a beautiful and slightly dangerous kunoichi, but besides that, nothing.

The two attacking kids threw kunai and shuriken at him, which he dodged, then tried to engage him in hand to hand, where he annihilated them, then leapt back and disengaged from combat, which he let them do.

"NARUTO, NOW!" Sakura shouted.

Bright orange wearing boys burst out from the same spot that Sakura and Sasuke had come out of, charging at him with kunai glinting dangerously in their hands. They split apart before reaching him, encircling the Jonin, and Kakashi let them do so, wondering what they were going to do this time.

"Well…" he said as the circle around him close in a solid circular wall of Naruto's "…how is this going to play out I wonder" he eyed smiled at the group at large "Why don't you show me?"

Sasuke and Sakura turning tail and fleeing drew his gaze, with a Naruto, presumably the original, hot on their heels, but he didn't have long to contemplate it as the clones rushed at him.

'_The clones are going to engage me in combat while they run away? But then why appear in the first place? Hmm, I wond…' _a sizzling sound cut his thoughts short_ 'Oh… well… that's a pretty good plan, I'll give em that… Ah shit' _escaping this situation alive would cause him more than a few injuries, and thus they would have landed a blow on him, and so he had to challenge Guy to a marathon.

That wasn't going to fun.

This explosion wasn't going to be much fun either _'No, wait, actually, given that…'_ was as far as his thoughts got before the explosion consumed him.

"Chakra Chains Binding!"

**BOOM!**

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They had run as far and as fast as they could, but even they couldn't reach the edge of the clearing before the explosion hit with a deafening **BOOM! **and the shockwave that followed hit them like tidal wave, picking them up and tossing them away.

Sasuke felt himself collide with a tree, and none too gently either, cracked open his eyes to see Naruto flying towards him, closed them again, felt the blonde hit, then felt nothing. He blinked, the explosion had deafened him, the impact with the tree had stunned him, but he managed to work out that he needed to look around.

Sakura was halfway through a bush, just her legs and rear end sticking out, and Naruto was… nowhere.

"That bastard" he muttered, despite being unable to hear himself speak. Naruto had stayed in the explosion, why Sasuke had no idea, but the one sent with them was clone, which was the only explanation for why Sasuke had felt the blonde hit but couldn't find him now, and also explained why he hadn't felt Naruto's weight on top of him afterwards, just the impact, then nothing.

Scrambling to his feet Sasuke grabbed Sakura's ankle and pulled her out, the girl's face and arms were scratched but otherwise she was unharmed, and a short sharp but not too hard kick to her side got her awake and attentive "Naruto isn't here! He was a clone…" Sasuke stopped, seeing the look of confusion on Sakura's face. She was as deaf as Sasuke, who it should be noted was deaf. Hopefully it was just temporary, if it was permanent then Sasuke was going to kill whoever came up with that idiot idea.

He had obviously forgotten it was his idea.

Jabbing a finger at the crater behind he mouthed 'Naruto'. He had say it a few times, before Sakura seemed to grasp what he was saying, and realisation appear on her face when she looked around, expecting to see the orange wearing idiot, they had sort of gotten used to in the short time they had been a team, and the even shorter time they'd been working together, lying around and finding him not.

They shared a single look, a glance towards the crater, then turned and ran towards the crater.

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Kakashi was sat relaxing in a nearby tree, with his book in hand, this was truly an enjoyable day _'So they destroyed my Shadow Clone' _he mused looking into the crater that had been formed from the rather large explosion of twenty odd explosive notes going off at once _'Dammit! Now I have to challenge Guy, why did I come up with that idea?' _technically speaking it was the clone that had come up with that idea, Kakashi had ignored the test shortly after he created the clone and vanished off to read his book.

He would've come up with the idea had he remained focused on the exam, but Tsusumi-chan was far more interesting than a bunch of bratty potential Genin.

'_Still, that was impressive, I'll give them that. It would've been difficult to escape that alive, never mind unscathed. Difficult, but by no means impossible' _and there was a time when such a 'difficult' thing like that, if not worse, would appear on a daily basis. Sadly, or thankfully rather, those days were past and the lull of peace had hooked into him. But he could still do very, very 'difficult' things, like rubbing his tummy while patting his head, or moving his foot in a clockwise circle in the air while drawing the letter six with the finger of the matching hand, very difficult.

"NARUTO!"

"Huh?" he easily located Sasuke and Sakura racing towards the crater, and wondered where the little blonde bastard had got too. He took a good long hard glance around as Sasuke and Sakura searched frantically _'Hmm, I wonder what's happened…'_

"_Chakra Chains Binding!"_

Kakashi sat opened mouth for a while, though you couldn't tell by looking at him due to the mask, then he signed _'Oh you psychotic little shit, what the hell is wrong with you?' _he searched with his eyes, seeking out what he knew/hoped would be there. And it was, 'it' being 'something' wrapped in chains from head to foot _'Using an imprisoning technique as a shield… Kinda inventive really.'_

"NARUTO, NARUTO ANSWER ME!" Sasuke rushed at the chains and started pulling at the cold metal, trying to loosen the coil that wrapped around 'something', 'something' probably being Naruto, hopefully being Naruto.

Sakura rushed to join him, and together they started pulling away the chains, but they didn't make much progress, yet their panic didn't fade, even though they should've gotten down to his face yet, even though Naruto should've woken up and removed the chains himself by now…

"Oh fuck" Kakashi stared at the scene and really, really, _really _hoped that he was wrong _'Please tell me that Naruto isn't…' _was as far as his thoughts got before his old battle instincts kicked in and he leapt. But he hadn't reacted fast enough and the kunai that was swung at his face managed to nick his finger, leaving a small gash. Kakashi spun on the branch, delivering a spinning kick into his orange clad attacker, and sending him flying into the clearing and the crater.

He glanced at his bleeding appendage "Huh?"

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"You know, you could've told us about this fucking plan" Sasuke said angrily, glaring at the blonde who had just come flying towards them.

Naruto laughed it off, or tried too.

The chains hadn't contained a Naruto, Sasuke had noticed that before he even reached them and Sakura had figured out the rest. That Naruto had some kind of plan and that the best thing they could do was hopefully worry sensei. He might've pissed off deeper into the forest and thus their act would be worthless, but that didn't seem to be his style, his style against the three of them anyway.

Kakashi landed in front of them, staring at his hand.

Sasuke drew a pair of kunai, holding them in a reverse grip, Sakura fell into a basic stance and Naruto scrambled to his feet. They were all ready.

But Kakashi didn't attack, instead he slowly reached up with his other hand, the one he wasn't staring at, and gently tugged down his mask. He placed his wounded finger in his mouth and gently sucked on it.

Sasuke's eyes went wide, so wide they almost bugged out of his skull. Sakura stared in shock, pink tinging her face. And Naruto… well he…

"This might be the wrong time to say this, but I've got an erection."

Sakura glanced over, unable to, for some reason, contain her curiosity, and checked, and indeed he had. She looked away shortly afterwards.

Sasuke just twitched.

And Kakashi pulled his finger away, checking the cut "Not that it matters" he said to them "but are you a homosexual Naruto?"

"No… at least, I don't think I am" Naruto scratched at his head "No, it's definitely no. No gay guy has a swimsuit calendar that he actually uses as his calendar… Ladies in swimsuits, obviously, not men, if it where men then it would be entirely understandable."

"I wouldn't say 'no gay guy' has one" Kakashi said, his finger having stopped it rather insignificant bleeding so he could now pull his mask back up, there being no need for access to his mouth anymore "Just that it's very unlikely one would have" Naruto nodded, that was fair enough "Still, I know a good way of getting rid of an erection, wanna hear it?"

"Sure."

"Pain" and with that he kicked Naruto in the face, then when the blonde fell over he kicked him hard in the ribs, sending him flying all the way to the stumps. He spun to block an attack from Sasuke and tossed the Uchiha away, threw a few kunai at Sakura to keep her occupied and resumed his attack on Naruto. Was he hitting the blonde as vengeance for his small cut? No, not really, in fact he was genuinely trying to help him, seriously he was, it could be hard to fight when you were… hard.

"Yeah, but you see…" Naruto said, looking up at Kakashi with blood dripping from his nose and mouth, breathing heavily, and with what would almost certainly later become a black eye around his left eye "…that won't work on me."

"Oh? Why not?" Kakashi had always found pain a good arousal killer, like when you were stabbed just before sex with a rather beautiful lady who turned out to be an enemy agent. Or even worse during sex, blue balled and stabbed, now that was terrible. So why would Naruto…

"I'm a masochist."

It took him but a moment to absorb that piece of information "Oh, sorry about that then" but when he did it was rather easy to accept. He wasn't actually sure if the kid was joking or not, but for now Kakashi would take his word "I guess I just made it worse, huh?" Kakashi apologised from the bottom of his heart, then grabbed a hold of Naruto's head and slammed it hard against the stump, with Naruto falling limply into an orange pile on the ground.

He was unconscious.

Sasuke was on him in a heartbeat, and Sakura wasn't far behind him. They engaged him as a duo for a while, with Sakura providing support in the form of kunai and genjutsu while Sasuke tried to outmanoeuvre him in taijutsu. They worked rather well together Kakashi noted, they had worked rather well as a team in fact, but the bells still jingled at his waist.

A few moments later Sasuke and Sakura were unconscious as well.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Naruto came too it was late evening, and he found his head pounding and aching, his hands bound, and his clothes feeling uncomfortable, like someone had messed with them while he slept. It didn't actually sound so bad when it was put like that, but it was. The pounding wasn't a 'I've been drinking all night' type pounding it was more a 'I've been hit by a baseball bat', his hands weren't bound to the bedposts by a pair of knickers but by ropes to a wooden post, and the way his clothes felt made him itch but he couldn't shift about properly to correct them.

He glanced to either side and found Sasuke and Sakura in a similar position, though they were both still unconscious. For a moment Naruto checked the ropes, searching for a way to get out. The rope binding wrapped around his wrists, then a longer length of rope ran tight around the post with Naruto's arms forced to become part of the circle that encircled the stump.

His arms ached as well now that he noticed it, they wanted to stretch, and felt like they had been stretched by how tight the rope was. While he could possibly escape by standing and pulling the rope up over the top of the post, Naruto wasn't tall enough to do such a thing, and neither was Sasuke nor Sakura so it was more an age thing than a Naruto being short for his age thing, also standing right now wasn't high on his list of 'Things I'd Like To Do'. It felt, just from a brief shuffle with his legs, like trying such a thing would be immensely painful, if not impossible, due to the unwillingness of his appendages to cooperate.

"I need a better sleeping position" he mused. He really fucking ached.

Minutes passed slowly, with the warm low orange sun setting the scene in golden light. Sakura was the first to awaken, besides Naruto. She woke with a start and panicked, but quickly calmed herself down and looked around "Naruto? What's going on?"

Naruto shrugged, he had an idea, but he wasn't certain. His idea being that the silver haired shit had left them here, probably for all night, possibly until they could escape _'To compound our failure I guess' _he sighed.

Sasuke woke next, his waking was far more peaceful than Sakura's with a snort of a snore, and a bleary look around before he realised the situation "What the hell?" Sasuke asked, his voice burning with rage and he yanked at the ropes "What is going on here?"

"'What's going on'… Good question" they all looked forwards at Kakashi who was stood in front of the posts they were tied to, his hands casually placed on his hips, and his single eye locked on them three of them.

'_When did he get here?' _Naruto wondered. He hadn't noticed at all. He remember with a wince his personal fight with Kakashi, he hadn't noticed then either.

"Sensei" Sakura said neutrally.

'Sensei' eye smiled at her "You know something, you guys really are something. Not many Genin can claim to have ever put a scratch on me" he raised his finger where a plaster had been carefully applied "Not alone, not in threes, not in battalions. You guys" he pointed at them sharply, making them all wince, but Kakashi's face wasn't harsh or cruel, instead it was… "You guys actually impressed me."

They sat, opened mouthed for a while. He had just complimented them, and it wasn't a backhanded or mocking compliment, it was a genuine compliment as far as any of them could tell, and it was a genuine compliment genuinely even though they scarcely believed it.

"You didn't steal the bells" he said, and it was like they had all been shot through the heart. The previous stunned faces immediately changed to downturned heads, it was so fast, so instant, that Kakashi found it immensely amusing. He sat down in front of them "Tell me, whose fault is it?"

They all blinked "What?" Naruto said confusedly.

"Who is at fault for your failure, as a team, to steal the bells? And I want your honest opinion, not _the_ truth but _your _truth. That is to say, who do _you _blame" he stared at the intently in turn, making sure they understood his demand and understood his seriousness "Ducky, you're up first" he decided to start on the left and work his way to the right, though for them, facing him, it would be the other way around.

Sasuke didn't speak for a long time, but finally he said "Those two" Kakashi nodded neutrally, Naruto rolled his eyes, Sakura said nothing "They tried their hardest, but it wasn't good enough."

"So did you" Kakashi reminded him.

"If it had been a team of me then…"

"You would have never agreed to work together in the first place" Kakashi cut him off before he could say any more. A team of Sasuke's would've been handled just as easily as this one, if not more easily as they would all have the same skillset and therefore the same weaknesses and thus each fight would make the next one easier. But he had asked for Sasuke's opinion, his genuine opinion, and he had gotten it "Whiskers?" he moved on.

Naruto shrugged as best he could while tied up "Me" Kakashi contained his surprise to a single casual blink that looked like he was just moisturising the surface of his eyeball. He gestured for the blonde to continue "My clones didn't create an opening for them before you took action, despite having ten minutes. My explosion didn't kill you, my kunai didn't cut open your neck, it was my fault."

"There is no I in team, blondie" Kakashi said "You made plenty of openings, they just didn't take advantage of them. Couldn't rather."

Naruto frowned and shrugged, as best he could with his arms tied.

Kakashi then turned his gaze to the last member of the team "And you Pinky? What do you think?"

The girl on the right stared at him intently for a while "It was all of us" she eventually said "As a team we didn't function as efficiently as we could've, we didn't figure out the purpose of the test in the first place, we didn't even consider trying to help one another. We all have personal failings in terms of matching our skills against yours, but we're Genin and you're a Jonin, and our failings as a team are more important."

"A team is only as strong as weakest member, like a chain a single weak link and the strong ones become worthless."

"Then what's the answer?" Naruto asked. He had criticized all of them, all of their answers. So what was the right one?

"Hmm?" Kakashi frowned, considering it "Well, it's your fault" he pointed at Naruto "And it's your fault" he pointed at Sakura "And yours" and at Sasuke "And you two" Naruto and Sasuke "And you two" Naruto and Sakura "And you two are also at fault" Sasuke and Sakura "And it was your fault collectively, as a group" they looked a bit confused, but Kakashi wasn't done "And it was my fault, for being too harsh on you, for giving you such a difficult test. And it was the Hokage's fault for assigning me as your sensei, and it was your academy instructors fault for passing you, and it was your parents fault for giving birth to you" he gave them an eye smile "There is no right answer, because there is no wrong answer. I wasn't asking for _your _answer, and I got it" they were still confused but he wasn't going to elucidate "In any case" he stood "You three pass."

The first response came from the blonde of the group who simply said "Huh?"

Next was Sakura with "But…"

Lastly was Sasuke with a nice simple "I don't get it."

He chuckled, then knelt down in front of Naruto and, fiddling with the blonde's pocket, pulled out two shiny silver bells "You obtained the bells."

They stared in shock, Sasuke and Sakura wondering when and how Naruto had gotten the bells and why he hadn't told about it, and Naruto himself wondering when and how he had gotten the bells and why he didn't know about it.

"So that's why my clothes feel messed up" Naruto said, noting the look on Kakashi face "You put them there" Kakashi nodded "You didn't do anything else did you?"

"Oh, come on, do I look like I'm interested in twelve year olds?" all he got in response was three raised eyebrows, one on Sasuke, two on Naruto, Sakura made no comment using her eyebrow or eyebrows "Okay, firstly I'm into women, secondly I like curves and maturity, thirdly you're my students and sexual relations with students are strictly forbidden and come with harsh punishments, so in answer to your question, 'No, I didn't do anything else'."

"But" Sasuke "we were supposed to steal the bells from you, if you give them to us doesn't that make the test a bit… pointless?"

"When did I say you were supposed to steal them from me?" Kakashi asked _'I really hope I didn't tell them to steal them from me'_ but he'd worry about that later, for now… "Your objective was to obtain the bells through any means necessary. I never said youhad to steal them just that you had to get them. Well" he dropped them on Naruto's chest "you've got them. I've given them to you, yes, but that doesn't change anything, you have completed your objective and obtained the bells, so you pass."

"Why?" Sakura asked.

"'Why?' Hmm, good question, you ask good questions in general pinky, good work. Well now" he moved back and sat down "'Why?'" to better ponder the question that had been asked "There are several reasons, and I'm not gonna tell you them all as some of them are personal. But… I like you guys. You're interesting, entertaining, and I like entertainment."

"But it doesn't properly simulate an actual mission, the enemy would never give up something they were charged with protecting" Sakura said, her fingers twitching in their bonds.

She made a good point, however… "Ah, but my mission wasn't to protect the bells. My mission was to see if you three were worthy of becoming Genin, and I've decided that you are, therefore I've given you the bells."

There was silence following that, Sakura it seemed had no more questions, Sasuke had no more comments and Naruto was grinning.

"Well in any case, I'll see you guys tomorrow" he stood and turned to walk away.

"Um, sensei?!" Sakura called before he could get too far.

"Hmm?" he looked back "What's up Sakura?"

"The ropes."

"Oh, right!" Kakashi grinned "You're all tied to posts aren't you, well… See you!"

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"That arse, I'll fucking kill him!" Naruto shouted weakly. He had skipped breakfast, been denied lunch, and now dinner had passed him by. He was starving.

Sasuke growled in agreement, and his stomach then growled in agreement as well.

"But we passed" Sakura reminded them.

Instantly Naruto's anger dampened and a grin spread over his face "Yeah, we did, didn't we? Hehe."

"Hn" was Sasuke response, but there was a look of smug satisfaction on his face, which Naruto and Sakura both assumed was his happy face.

Sakura stared up at the moon for a while, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation in her stomach "I hope my aunt and uncle don't worry" she said after a moment, drawing the attention of her two teammates.

Sasuke scowled "My brother probably won't care" he said spitefully. In truth Itachi probably knew about all of this beforehand and so had expected it, so it wasn't so much that he didn't care and more that he thought it wouldn't do Sasuke any harm. It still pissed Sasuke off.

Naruto remained silent.

Both Sasuke and Sakura winced.

They were all orphans, they had all lost their parents, but Naruto's had died moments after his birth, Sasuke and Sakura had both known and loved their parents, and maybe that was better or maybe it was worse, but Sasuke and Sakura also both had relatives who looked after them afterwards, in Sakura's case her aunt and uncle, in Sasuke's case his older brother, but Naruto… he…

"I'm bored" Naruto said, breaking them out of their thoughts "I'm gonna try and sleep my way through this, see you guys in the morning" with that Naruto shuffled in his bonds to try and get comfy and closed his eyes shut.

Sakura and Sasuke shared a look, before they both did the same.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So they passed then?" the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi asked one of his most skilled and most trusted ninja.

"Where you expecting anything else?" Kakashi asked a question in response to the question.

Hiruzen chuckled "I suppose not. I expected you to give them several chances to understand the test, and I expected them to pass" he looked at Kakashi intently "So tell me, why did you pass them Kakashi?"

Kakashi frowned for a moment "Because…" he rubbed at his chin "Because they cut me" he said, showing off his plastered finger, that is to say that it had a plaster on not that it was drunk "That's impressive enough to convince me. And they didn't work together too badly I guess. And…" and I owe them all too much, but he wouldn't say that out loud for fear of making it more real than it already was. Naruto in particular wouldn't thank him for feeling obligated to help the boy because of who his father was, who his father was to Kakashi that is, Sasuke probably wouldn't be pleased, and Sakura, he honestly had little to no idea how she would react, she might just accept it, she might loathe him for it.

"I see" the Hokage nodded, closing his eyes as he did so "Very well then. Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Namikaze, Sakura Haruno, are officially Genin and officially Team 7, under the command of Jonin sensei Kakashi Hatake. Serve this village proudly" the entire team was supposed to be here for this moment, sadly Kakashi had left his tied to the stumps in the training ground.

Kakashi saluted his leader "Yes sir, thank you sir."

* * *

Just today finished this and though I did give it a good proofread before posting there might still be a few errors lying around so if you spot them please point them out and I'll try to correct them. So it seems people like Flipside a lot more than Embers of an Uchiha, it's a more original idea I guess, still I've not decided to focus on one or another, I might do later but for now they'll both be updated when I have chapters for them finished to my satisfaction.

Anyway thanks for reading, review if you would be so kind, or don't if you're an a bit of a prick, I don't mind which (in case you're wondering in the vast majority of cases I'm a bit of a prick).

Toodles.


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